Kris Bowers

Jazz pianist and soundtrack composer Kris Bowers was born April 5, 1989, in Los Angeles, California. Thanks in part to his parents’ encouragement, Bowers began playing piano before the age of 5. His studies would lead to a master’s degree from Julliard. After triumphing at the 2011 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition, he played on Watch the Throne, an album by Kanye West and Jay-Z. Bowers’ 2014 debut LP, Heroes + Misfits, showcased his ability to fuse avant-garde jazz with R&B and electronic flourishes. Starting with the 2013 documentary Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, he began a career as a film and television composer. He went on to provide music for a variety of projects including Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, the television series, Dear White People, and an adaptation of the award-winning children’s book The Snowy Day that won Bowers an Emmy. In addition to scoring Green Book, the Oscar winning biopic of musician Don Shirley, he has composed music for choreographers Alvin Ailey and Kyle Abraham, and he earned an Emmy nomination in 2020 for his contribution to the soundtrack of the series Mrs. America. He also helped score the 2020 series Bridgerton, which included his composition “Simon and Lady Danbury”. His work on Bridgerton earned him a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media. Further soundtrack work includes Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021), Colin in Black & White (2021) Inventing Anna (2022), and Bridgerton Season Two (2022). Kris Bowers took a slight detour and composed music for the video games Madden NFL 20 (2019) and Madden NFL 21 (2020).