Therefore, a crucial question arises: how do you compose music for a book? This is the first thing composer Joel McNeely was concerned about. A score though with the same title, it was indeed composed! How could possibly that happen? It is because the score was not written for a film, but for a book! Something rare, of course, but certainly we are dealing with a musical exploration inspired by a vast and rich content. The reason is that a Star Wars movie called “Shadows of the Empire” never existed. Well, n ow you can keep the score and the composer and just forget the other hypothetical references. Assuming that the title was “Shadows of the Empire” and for some reason John Williams was not available to write the score, scoring duties were assumed by composer Joel McNeely, one of the greatest musical talents emerged in the early 1990s and an accomplished conductor with numerous exceptional recordings of classic soundtracks such as “Vertigo” (1958), “Marnie” ( 1964) and “Psycho” (1960), among others. Let’s suppose George Lucas had produced another Star Wars film between “The Empire Strikes Back” and “The Return of the Jedi”. “With the cinematic universe of Star Wars currently enteringĪ new era, Lucasfilm should hire Joel McNeely to compose musicįor an upcoming Star Wars movie! Kathleen Kennedy, are you listening?” Soundtrack Release: 1996 (first release) & 2020 Music Composed and Conducted by: Joel McNeely

Shadows of the empire theme