Detta inlägg post publicerades ursprungligen på denna sida this site ;
Date:
Author: James Deaville, Professor of Music, Carleton University
Original article: https://theconversation.com/white-lotus-music-when-talented-creators-strive-to-realize-their-visions-differences-and-chattering-can-erupt-254032
After the first two seasons of The White Lotus (set respectively in Hawaii and Sicily), the buzz in the media and on social media typically focused on the selection of the next site for the award-winning show.
Not so much in 2025, after the close of Season 3’s Thailand-based episodes. Instead, the internet and social media have been alive with chatter over the announcement by Canadian Chilean composer Cristóbal Tapia de Veer that he was quitting the mega-hit franchise to the shock and disappointment of many of the show’s fans.
Tapia de Veer revealed his intention in an interview with the New York Times published April 2, just four days before the season’s finale, which aired to a series-record viewership. His departure announcement, twinned with criticism of White Lotus writer, creator and showrunner Mike White, has highlighted issues with creative tensions behind such collaborative productions.
Acclaimed music
The Québec-trained composer’s 2022 and 2023 music-related White Lotus Emmy awards recognize his aural contributions to the highly awarded hit series. The music’s idiosyncratic mixture of a recognizable theme, bizarre vocalizations and site-based instrumentation has received a lot of popular attention and acclaim.
In contrast, some members of the public reacted with hostility toward this season’s theme music. This was partly because it did not use the identifiable thematic material that bound together the first seasons: a four-note theme that has been transliterated as “ooh-loo-loo-loos” and was the basis for the title theme music in the first two seasons.
The Season 3 theme nevertheless sounds familiar due to Tapia de Veer’s ongoing quirky use of the voice. Novel ways of using it have been the foundations of all the Lotus themes, and in Season 3, it imitated monkey sounds.
As White said in a statement about the show: “There’s this kind of conflict between wanting to be this spiritual creature that has an idealism and working towards something that’s some semblance of goodness, and then there’s this antic monkey side that keeps putting you in situations that are compromised.”
‘Ooh-loo-loos’ and creative differences
Still, Tapia de Veer said he knew his novel Season 3 approach was a “kind of a risk,” to the extent that he produced an extended version with the traditional “ooh-loo-loo-loos” for insertion later in the show, but White rejected the idea.
According to the composer, White wanted “more of a ‘chill, sexy vibe’” compared to Tapia de Veer’s more experimental tracks. On the Howard Stern Show, when asked what happened, White had a different perspective, saying: “I honestly don’t know what happened. Reading the interviews … I just don’t think he respected me.”
The director said he didn’t think they had fought, and expressed dismay that Tapia de Veer brought criticisms and perceived differences to the media.
To this, Tapia de Veer told the BBC he went public because White hadn’t handled the news “in a normal business manner,” and he said White’s comments on the Stern show demonstrated the director doesn’t fully appreciate the importance of the music on the show.
On his YouTube channel, Tapia de Veer has uploaded another variant of the theme (“Enlightenment”) under the track title “Full Moon Party,” as well as a 45-minute loop of the 11-note theme.
What unites the Season 3 tracks is the leaping, non-melodic theme, repeated over and over in changing synthesizer settings. The composer has said no soundtrack album for Season 3 will be forthcoming.
Scores gives unity through themes
The positions of White and Tapia de Veer equally suggest a lack of effective communication, and as named or all but named by both parties, a lack of respect. Both are crucial elements behind the interpersonal relationships required in audiovisual production.
In the traditional collaboration, the composer falls under the leadership of the director or showrunner, not least because the music is the final audiovisual element added to the mix.
By the time the film text reaches the composer, the visual track and dialogue have been locked — shooting is completed — yet it lacks the decisive contribution the score makes in defining characters, establishing moods and atmospheres, and giving unity to the whole through recurring themes.
The composer may work at their own keyboard or digital audio workstation, yet customarily in collaboration with the project’s other creative forces, especially the director.
Notorious score differences
Differences between film directors or television producers and composers are not new, the most notorious being Stanley Kubrick’s rejection of Alex North’s score for 2001: A Space Odyssey. This was in favour of the music Kubrick had chosen to temporarily accompany the visual track.
In another well-known instance, Alfred Hitchcock — under pressure from executives at Universal — replaced the Torn Curtain score (1966) by long-term collaborator Bernard Herrmann with more contemporary-sounding music by John Addison, which ended the decade-long association of composer and director.
More recently, Gabriel Yared’s score for Troy (2004), directed by Wolfgang Petersen, was replaced with one by James Horner, because test audiences disapproved of Yared’s music.
Composer withdrawls rare
With The White Lotus, however, we have a composer walking away from a job in a very public way. A composer’s resignation is not without precedent, yet it remains considerably rarer than their firing. Major film scorer Dmitri Tiomkin withdrew from two early 1960s projects directed by Robert Aldrich, but because of other commitments rather than any disagreement.
In contrast, Leonard Bernstein did threaten to walk away from West Side Story in 1949 over creative tensions with writer Arthur Laurents — still, this was communicated privately.
Canadian composer Howard Shore withdrew from Peter Jackson’s King Kong (2005), but in this case, Shore said the parting was amicable and related to “differing creative aspirations.”
Future seasons?
The drama around White Lotus music is unique because both director and composer have talked with the press.
If we look beyond the specifics of the music, however, we realize that this is not just about a (new) theme song and its use (or non-use) in the series. Rather, the “differences” cut to the heart of the often fraught working relationship between highly talented creators who strive to realize their visions.
What does this mean for the music for Season 4 of The White Lotus? White has not suggested a successor, so commentators have fixated on the disagreements over Season 3 rather than speculating about a future sound. We will have to wait and listen.
James Deaville does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
