When the Obi-Wan Kenobi series premieres on May 27, Natalie Holt will become the first woman to ever provide the score for a live-action Star Wars project – and she will do so along legendary Star Wars composer John Williams.
We learned a few months ago that Williams wrote the theme for the series, giving Obi-Wan Kenobi an actual theme for the very first time. And in a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Holt revealed that it was actually Williams who approached Lucasfilm President Kathy Kennedy about doing so.
“Obi-Wan is a legacy character that John hadn’t written a theme for because he died quite early on in A New Hope,” Holt said. “It’s the only legacy character that he hadn’t done. So he spoke to Kathleen Kennedy and said, “I just want to write Benny a theme.” So who can deny him that? And he did, he wrote the Obi theme, and it just embodies the spirit of the show entirely.”
I love that. I think it’s awesome that Williams has such an interest in doing this, and in many ways it’s one final pillar in a Star Wars legacy that is unmatched and iconic. In the course of the nine Skywalker Saga films Williams provided legendary musical themes for characters like Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, Anakin Skywalker, Rey, Kylo Ren, and more. There really were two especially main characters that Williams didn’t provide a particular theme for over the course of those trilogies: Han Solo and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Well, with the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story in 2018 Williams was able to check one of those off the list, as he provided the main theme for Han Solo’s character, which composer John Powell used and weaved throughout his score for the film. And now, with Obi-Wan Kenobi, Williams is once more doing the same thing for a different iconic character, and Natalie Holt is the composer who gets to weave his theme throughout the score.
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