As the title evinces, a musical instrument is the beating — and broken — heart of Malcolm Washington’s directorial debut, The Piano Lesson. The film, which is adapted from August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, follows a 1930s Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania family who disagree about what to do with a piano passed down through generations, carved with the likenesses of their ancestors who were enslaved. 

Alexandre Desplat, the two-time Oscar-winning composer, was discerning when it came to employing the title instrument. He reserves the piano orchestration for the film’s breathtaking climax, when Berniece (Till’s Danielle Deadwyler), who wants to keep the piano and not sell it, returns to its bench. “The suspense of this moment where she will finally touch the keys and create a sound with the piano — that’s a very big moment in the film.”

Throughout the rest of the scenes, Desplat (The Shape of Water, The Grand Budapest Hotel) wove together a medley of musical traditions with African roots. “I said yes to the film because I wanted to work with Malcolm, was intrigued by the story, and saw this as a challenge to explore several different musical influences including classical and jazz and blend them together,” says the composer.