From subtle cues to iconic themes, composers create the sonic language of television that sticks with us long after we’ve turned off our screens. Composing music for television is a deeply collaborative art form, and everyone’s process looks a little bit different. IndieWire celebrated the brilliance of TV composers at our 2026 Craft Roundtables, where we convened a panel of composers behind some of the season’s best shows for a conversation moderated by features writer Jim Hemphill. Panelists included Breton Vivian (“The Madison”), John Paesano (“The Boroughs”), Jeff Russo (“Alien: Earth”), Amanda Jones (“Murderbot”), Kris Bowers & Michael Dean Parsons (“Spider-Noir”), and Mac Quayle (“Monster: The Ed Gein Story”). 

The conversation began by exploring the creative relationships between composers and showrunners. Several artists on the panel repeatedly collaborate with the creators of their shows (for example, Quayle is a Ryan Murphy regular, and Russo frequently works with Noah Hawley). The discussion about these relationships revealed just how unique every show’s scoring process is — and why professional composers have to be prepared for anything.

“Typically with Noah, because I’ve been working with Noah for almost 17 years, he will send me scripts right at the very beginning and I’ll star writing thematic material right off the bat,” Russo said of his relationship with Hawley, noting that the two began planning for “Alien: Earth” before pausing to make “Fargo” Season 5 and then returning to the sci-fi adaptation.

But Quayle explained that his collaborations with Murphy often fall on the other end of the time spectrum, as the composer often joins projects very deep in post-production and has to work quickly.

“The circumstances really mirrored the first show that I did for [Murphy], which was ‘American Horror Story’ Season 4,” he said. “I came on late in the process, they had tried some ideas that didn’t work out, and now they’re running out of time. I get a call and I go into a meeting with Ryan and he said ‘I need a horror score, and we need themes, and we have almost no time.’ So he was like ‘I need you to do what you did on American Horror Story for us, because it was the same thing. It was exciting and terrifying.”