‘Rosaline’ Composing Duo Drum & Lace On Mixing Renaissance and Modern Instruments for Shakespearian Score
Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Hulu’s “Rosaline” (streaming Oct. 14) puts a rom-com spin on Shakespeare’s classic love story “Romeo and Juliet.” With that, composers Drum & Lace (Sofia Hultquist and Ian Hultquist) put a similar spin on their musical approach to scoring. The film stars Kaitlyn Deaver as Rosaline, the story’s jilted ex-lover. Drum & Lace integrated traditional instruments of the time, such as harpsichord, lute, wooden flutes, renaissance drums and more, into a score with a pop sensibility. But for the composing duo whose credits include “Dickenson” and “Good Lenny,” scoring comedy was more of a challenge than scoring drama. Sofia Hultquist said, “You have comedic timing to keep very much in mind. For ‘Rosaline,’ we tried to find very strong themes that we could use often so as to build a familiarity with the characters as well as play up the emotional arcs that were happening on-screen.”