Barlow & Bear Make Historical past With the ‘Moana 2’ Soundtrack

A day with Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear shortly makes you are feeling like an underachiever. 

The songwriting duo, who’re 26 and 23, respectively, are already Grammy winners as Barlow & Bear; individually, Bear toured because the pianist on Beyoncé’s 2023 “Renaissance” tour and was a prodigy of Quincy Jones’, and Barlow a pop songwriter and singer. Working as a duo since 2019, they now are making historical past. Because the composers for Disney’s “Moana 2,” in theaters Wednesday, they’re each the youngest composers and the primary all-female crew to write down the songs for an animated Disney film. 

The duo had a normal assembly with Tom MacDougall, the president of music at Disney, and when he ended the meal by suggesting he might need a undertaking for them, they didn’t assume a lot of it. 

“Nothing comes out of these conferences,” Barlow says.

A couple of yr later, they bought an e-mail revealing {that a} sequel to “Moana” was within the works and the filmmakers had been considering assembly with them.

“We actually hit it off as a result of I used to be the identical age as Moana is once we first bought employed on this,” Bear says. “And we had been going via a giant life change and making an attempt to grapple with the change in ourselves, on the earth round us and the whole lot. And that’s a giant factor that Moana goes via on this film. So we instantly linked along with her and felt like we’d do job placing ourselves in her sneakers and singing her songs.”

The method for “Moana 2” had them within the author’s room each week for greater than two-and-a half years, engaged on songs as bits and items of the animation got here in.

“To us, writing musical theater is all about with the ability to put your self within the sneakers of another person and honoring their perspective on the world,” Bear says. “And this simply made it lots simpler as a result of we may instantly determine with [Moana]. Placing ourselves in her head and making an attempt to know what she in all probability felt like at this large second in her life, it simply flowed.”

“And she or he turns into an excellent greater chief on this movie,” Barlow says. “So having to step as much as the plate as a songwriter that has by no means completed something outdoors of writing a pop music, which is my background, that was how I actually linked it. I simply needed to put myself within the sneakers of a Disney heroine, which is a enjoyable problem.”

Barlow, who grew up in Birmingham, Ala., began doing musical theater at a younger age, happening to be a aggressive dancer. She participated in a scholarship program as a child the place she had the chance to fulfill a pop songwriter and it opened up her world. 

“I used to be like, ‘oh, that is what I need to do eternally,’” she says. She graduated highschool early and moved to L.A. at 18 to “chase the songwriter dream.”

Bear, in the meantime, is from Rockford, Unwell., and has been enjoying piano professionally since she was a toddler. She appeared on “The Ellen Present” beginning on the age of 6, carried out on the White Home and launched a jazz album produced by Jones, all as a child. When she landed at NYU, she found movie scoring and knew it was what she wished to pursue. 

“After I heard my music performed with an orchestra for the primary time, I used to be like, that is the very best on the earth. Why wouldn’t anybody need to do it?” she says.

They met via a mutual good friend in L.A. who thought they’d be songwriting match. 

“I had her over to my home. We watched ‘The Bachelorette,’” Barlow says. 

“And she or he made cinnamon toast crunch macarons,” Bear provides. 

“We simply bonded over being girlies who graduated highschool early,” Barlow continues. “And the wrestle of residing in L.A. as an underage lady,” Bear says.

Writing “The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical Album,” which might go on to win them a Grammy, was initially Barlow’s concept. 

“I used to be at residence driving myself loopy as a result of all I used to be doing was writing pop songs. It was like a crapshoot of songs that I used to be writing. And I simply misplaced inspiration and located it within the ‘Bridgerton’ TV present,” she says. 

The timing labored out completely: for greater than six months main up till then, Bear had been making an attempt to get gigs scoring initiatives however had been placing out. 

“Nobody desires to rent a 17-year-old to attain their films,” she says.  “However wanting again, if I had gotten any of these jobs, we’d’ve by no means completed ‘Bridgerton.’”

The press tour for “Moana 2” has taken them from L.A. to Sydney, Hawaii and London, the place they’ve gotten to fulfill followers of the movie and, hopefully, future composers. 

“Age is only a quantity, however I believe writing for a peer is so cool. And if some younger particular person sees us and sees Moana and all of us look the identical, I believe that’s actually highly effective,” Bear says.