You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made.

I'm Rishikesh Herway.

The film moonlight tells the story of its main character, Shiron, in three chapters.

When Shiron's a young boy, nicknamed Little.

When he's a teenager and goes by Shiron, and when he's an adult, nicknamed Black.

For each chapter of the film, composer Nicholas Prattell created a theme.

And in this episode, Nicholas takes those themes apart, revealing how they all evolved out of a single piece of music.

The score from moonlight was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe, and the film itself won the Golden Globe for Best Drama.

This episode is part of a series I'm doing in conjunction with New York Magazine's site Vulture, looking at awards worthy film music from this season.

The first was with Johann Johansson on the score for Irrival.

The second was with Justin Harwitz on Lalla Land, and now Nicholas Prattell on the score from moonlight.

For more, visit Vulture.com slash awards.

My name's Nicholas Prattell, and I'm the composer of moonlight.

When I first read it, I was just overwhelmed by this feeling of beauty and poetry.

That was really the starting point for my personal experience with the film.

There was just this incredible sense of beauty and of sensitivity, and tenderness, and intimacy in the screenplay.

The director of moonlight is Barry Jenkins, and what was amazing to me when I first saw the early cuts of the film after it was shot,

was how well Barry had preserved that feeling of poetry in the movie.

I was a while little short, just like you.

When around with no shoes on, the mood was out.

This is one time I'll run by this old.

This old lady I was running Holland, cutting a food, boy.

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