For Breton Vivian, scoring ‘The Madison’ meant finding a sound that could capture both the chaos of New York City and the quiet beauty of Montana.
“A lot of the music has these kind of textural string sounds,” Vivian says of the scenes set in Montana. “I was trying to think of, how do you musically portray something like wind breathing through leaves or… water flowing down a river.”
Composer Breton Vivian joined ‘The Madison’ after production had wrapped on the first season, giving him the opportunity to watch all six episodes before writing a note of music. During our conversation, Vivian discusses developing the show’s central themes, differentiating the frenetic energy of New York from the dreamlike atmosphere of Montana, and using texture and melody to reflect Stacy Clyburn’s grief journey. He also talks about crafting the series’ main title theme, selecting favorite cues from the score, returning for the already-filmed second season, and balancing work across multiple Taylor Sheridan productions.
Across six episodes, ‘The Madison’ channels its love story through what may be Sheridan’s most intimate drama yet, putting resilience and transformation at the forefront of a study in grief and human connection. The neo-Western unfolds against the contrasting backdrops of Manhattan’s restless energy and the wide-open beauty of southwest Montana, examining what continues to hold this family together.
Created by Taylor Sheridan, ‘The Madison’ stars Michelle Pfeiffer, Kurt Russell, Beau Garrett, Patrick J. Adams, Elle Chapman, Amiah Miller, Alaina Pollack, Ben Schnetzer, Kevin Zegers, Rebecca Spence, with Matthew Fox. Will Arnett appears as a special guest star.
All episodes of ‘The Madison’ are currently streaming on Paramount+.
Awards Focus: It’s been a few years since we last spoke. How are you doing?
Breton Vivian: I’m good, thank you. How are you?
AF: I’m doing well.
Breton Vivian: Are you up in New York? Is that right?
AF: No, I’m still in Chicago.
Breton Vivian: Oh, Chicago. That’s it. Yeah. Awesome. How’s it over there?
AF: Well, the weather is up and down.
Breton Vivian: Yeah, I bet. Yeah.
AF: One day I’m wearing a t-shirt and shorts, and next day, it’s right back to that winter jacket.
Breton Vivian: Oh, my word. Wow.
AF: Yeah.
Breton Vivian: So hard to plan.
AF: Tell me about it. You’ve been in the Taylor Sheridan universe for several years now, with quite a few series airing this season. When it came to ‘The Madison,’ what direction did you get in terms of the score?
Breton Vivian: Taylor said he was looking for something in the realm of ‘1883.’ They originally had another composer on, but for whatever reason, they were looking for something else. When I came along, I was able to see all six episodes and really get a feel for how the story is. Also, they didn’t feel the temp was quite right so I knew what they didn’t want, really. I spent the next three days coming up with a big suite of ideas to send to Taylor, just so he can see what my vision was. After that, he was like, Yep, you’re on the right path. Keep going. That kind of thing.
AF: Did the temp have any influence on your work?
Breton Vivian: Not really. Well, in the sense that I knew what wasn’t working for the show. And yeah, so in a way, it was just me trying to do my own interpretation of where I thought the music should go with the story.
AF: Did it help that you joined the series after all the footage was there as opposed to starting off with the script and coming up with themes that early in the process?
Breton Vivian: Yeah, it really helped because I could see some of the key scenes that was really showing off the music. I could really subconsciously think about that while I was scoring all the other scenes. I knew early on that we were going to need a few themes to really help sell the characters in the story and so that put me on the path of what I needed to focus on first was after I’d gotten the initial sound right and something that Taylor really likes—the direction. I then needed to really focus on the themes because I knew that they were going to come up in quite big moments of the show.
AF: The score is rather intimate. How did you approach themes for scenes taking place in New York as opposed to those taking place in the Madison River valley?
Breton Vivian: Yeah, so for a lot of the New York scenes, even just the way Chad edited those scenes, it’s very frenetic. There’s a lot of energy. There’s a lot of really choppy cuts. That really inspired the score to be very, well, energetic, staccatoed, very—I can’t think of the word—very just, yeah, choppy, I guess, is a way I’d describe it.
Whereas I think with the scenes in Montana, it’s a lot more dreamlike or textural and thematic and sweeping. I was trying to help tell the story that she is in a different location. She’s in another world almost. A lot of the music has these kind of textural string sounds. I was trying to think of, how do you musically portray something like wind breathing through leaves or something like that, or water flowing down a river. For some of it, I was trying to mimic the river that’s snaking across the valley, or the roads that she drives that snake across the valley. I was thinking maybe strings that slide in and out or strings that have a shimmery articulation played on them.
A lot of that also helped with the story of Stacy’s grief in that she’s very much swaying back and forth in this emotional roller coaster in a way. She’s trying to come to terms with grief and that’s almost in a dreamlike haze in itself. I felt that that paired really nicely with the textural elements that I added that was depicting Montana as well.
AF: Is there a cue that evolved the most from the time you started composing until the time recording was finished?
Breton Vivian: Yeah, probably the main titles, I would say. I had originally come up with a theme idea and sent it amongst that suite of ideas. Taylor wasn’t really feeling it. He just didn’t feel it had that catchy melodic idea to it. I went away again and just sat at my piano over there for three days and just really figure out something that was really simple that could be played really powerfully with the orchestra. That was really the one that took quite a while to figure out and get and to have. It’s simple enough, but also catchy enough that it might get stuck in your head.
AF: Do you have a favorite cue in particular?
Breton Vivian: Yeah, there’s a cue called “Fishing by Moonlight” that’s on the album. It’s one of my favorites because the scene that it plays under is a moment where you get to see Preston fishing with his brother Paul. It’s just a happy memory. The music plays that happiness, but it also is there to communicate to the audience that maybe this is something more than just a hobby. It’s his happiness. It’s his reason. They’re getting up at G-d knows what hour of the morning. It’s still moonlight by that point. And so why do they do it? They do it because it’s their happy place. It’s something that they adore doing and something that provides a certain sense of humanity for them.
It was really fun to try and communicate that with the audience with this big sweeping. It starts off melodic, small melodic, and then it has the humor when they’re goofing around in the river. But then it transitions into something that is way more sweeping, I guess. It was really fun to try and have that be the driving force to communicate their love for this hobby.
AF: I know that they’ve completed principal photography on season two and a third season was just renewed, but where are you in terms of the score for the second season?
Breton Vivian: Where am I? I just finished episode one and I am probably about halfway through episode two. So yeah, it’s really exciting. I’m so happy that there’s more story to tell with these characters because I really love them.
AF: When series move beyond their first season, how helpful is it to have a built-in library of themes that you can draw on for future seasons?
Breton Vivian: It’s great. I think the risk is I don’t want to become too dependent on them. I think it’s great to have these in the back pocket, but I think I also need to expand it more and bring new ideas into the story instead of just relying on the same themes over and over again.
AF: Yeah. As soon as I finished watching the finale when they sent the screeners, I needed that next episode in my eyeballs.
Breton Vivian: (Laughs) Well, hopefully it’s not too long. I feel like it surprised me how quick they were to carry on. So really hope it’s going to be soon.
AF: You’re also working on ‘Marshals’ and ‘Dutton Ranch’ with Brian Tyler. How did you balance working on multiple series?
Breton Vivian: It’s tough. It’s been a new thing for me. I think I would struggle if I hadn’t have had the many years of working in ‘Yellowstone’ and ‘1883’ and ‘1923.’ It really gave me a grounding of my own creative process. I feel that I have a good understanding of where my brain is creatively and how to make sure if I’m going down a path that isn’t probably not right for the cue, I can step away, work on something else, and compartmentalize certain parts of the workflow. I think it’s definitely been a challenge to step into all these different realms, but also, it’s just been incredibly fun to be able to have so much variation in my writing, to be able to also explore different avenues that the ‘Yellowstone’ music can go down because each story tells something quite different. It was a fun challenge to try and make each one feel like ‘Yellowstone,’ but also feel like its own world as well.
AF: Is there a studio that you prefer to record at because of the way it sounds?
Breton Vivian: Oh, yeah. When we were doing Yellowstone Season 1, we did Abbey Road. So that one’s lovely. Yeah, I guess Abbey Road is probably not the most original answer, but yeah, it’s an amazing studio.
AF: Yeah. It’s funny. It wasn’t until watching Mary McCartney’s Abbey Road documentary that I started adding that question to my repertoire, which was after we had spoken a few years back.
Breton Vivian: Yeah. Have you heard any studios you haven’t heard of that are kind of weird?
AF: Well, there’s definitely studios that I’m not as familiar with because I don’t live in LA.
Breton Vivian: Yeah, yeah.
AF: I obviously know of Abbey Road, Capitol Records, Air Studios.
Breton Vivian: Capitol Records is really nice as well, especially that intimate quality. I think it’s a really nice place.
AF: Yeah. One of these days, I would love to get my photo crossing the street in front on Abbey Road.
Breton Vivian: Yeah, you have to. It’s legally required to do that.
AF: Yeah, but I don’t know when I’m getting to London.
Breton Vivian: Hopefully soon. Fingers crossed.
AF: All right. Thank you so much. It’s been nice getting to catch up.
Breton Vivian: Yeah, it’s lovely to see you again and thanks so much for the questions.