One of the surprise cinematic hits of 2016 was the heart-wrenching coming-of-age drama Moonlight,

which of course won Best Picture at this year's Oscars in unforgettable circumstances.

Written and directed by the fabulous Barry Jenkins,

Moonlight presents three stages in the life of the main character,

Shiran, as he struggles to deal with his sexuality and challenging social circumstances.

It was beautifully scored by Nicholas Brutel, who I'm delighted to see is my latest guest on soundtracking.

Our weekly podcast about screen music with me, Edith Bowman.

On the face of it, Nicholas's compositions follow orchestral conventions.

However, scratch beneath the surface, and one discovers all sorts of sonic tricks,

including a technique borrowed from hip-hop called Chopped and Screwed,

in which the original piece of music is simply slowed down, bent and overlaid to create something that sounds altogether different.

Plenty then for us to discuss.

Nicholas, it's a pleasure to have you become part of our soundtracking family.

Congratulations, first of all, on Moonlight and the response that that film has had all over the world.

And we were just talking as we were coming in the studio about Barry Jenkins,

and what a wonderful gentleman that he is.

Let's start with Moonlight, if that's okay, and in terms of how you came to work on that project

and what the asks were of you from Barry and what that collaboration was between the two of you.

Thank you again for having me here. This is really, I'm honored to be here.

I was scoring the big short in 2015, and I had an amazing experience on that.

And Jeremy Kleiner and Dee D.D. Gardner from Plan B were the producers of that film.

And during that year, one night I was having dinner with Jeremy, and he actually got very emotional

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