Nathan Barr
American film and television composer and musician
title: "Nathan Barr" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1973-births", "american-bisexual-men", "american-bisexual-musicians", "american-classical-cellists", "american-expatriates-in-italy", "american-expatriates-in-japan", "american-expatriates-in-switzerland", "american-film-score-composers", "american-lgbtq-composers", "american-male-film-score-composers", "american-multi-instrumentalists", "american-television-composers", "bisexual-composers", "bisexual-male-musicians", "composers-from-tokyo", "juilliard-school-alumni", "lgbtq-film-score-composers", "living-people", "place-of-birth-missing-(living-people)", "primetime-emmy-award-winners", "skidmore-college-alumni", "varèse-sarabande-records-artists"] description: "American film and television composer and musician" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Barr" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary American film and television composer and musician ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Nathan Barr |
| image | NathanBarrToga.jpg |
| caption | Nathan Barr playing his bowed guitar |
| birth_date | |
| other_names | Nate Barr |
| occupation | Composer |
| :: |
| name = Nathan Barr | image = NathanBarrToga.jpg | alt = | caption = Nathan Barr playing his bowed guitar | birth_name = | birth_date = | birth_place = | nationality = | other_names = Nate Barr | occupation = Composer
Nathan Barr (born February 9, 1973; also known as Nate Barr) is an American film and television composer and musician. His television scores include True Blood, The Americans, Carnival Row, and The Great. He won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Theme Music in 2020 for his work on the miniseries Hollywood.
Early life
Barr started studying music in Tokyo, Japan at the age of four. He studied cello and English literature at Skidmore College.
Career
In 1996, Barr moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in composing film and television scores. One of his first jobs was working under the tutelage of Hans Zimmer on the films As Good as It Gets and The Prince of Egypt. After 8 months with Zimmer, Barr landed an agent and branched out on his own. Since then, Barr has scored a large array of feature films and TV series, including all episodes of HBO's series True Blood.
In 2009, Barr co-wrote and produced a song with Pete Townshend for FX's The Americans called "It Must Be Done" and in 2005 Barr hired Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top to play guitar on his score for The Dukes Of Hazzard.
Filmography
Film
::data[format=table]
Television series
::data[format=table]
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Fear | |
| 2001 | Kate Brasher | |
| 2008–14 | True Blood | |
| 2013–15 | Hemlock Grove | Composed with Todd Haberman |
| 2013–18 | The Americans | |
| 2014 | Tumble Leaf | |
| 2015–17 | Sneaky Pete | Composed with Stephen Lukach |
| 2016 | Greenleaf | |
| 2017 | The Son | |
| 2019 | Fosse/Verdon | |
| The Rook | Additional music by Justin Caine Burnett | |
| Carnival Row | ||
| 2020 | The Great | Includes Bird on a Wire by Simone Istwa |
| Hollywood | ||
| 2022–25 | The Tiny Chef Show | Theme song composer |
| 2023 | The Diplomat | Composed with Dimitri Smith |
| :: |
Awards
- 2010 BMI Award for Original Score for True Blood Season 2 (HBO)
- 2009 Hollywood Media in Music Award for Best Score for True Blood (HBO)
- 2009 BMI Award for Original Score for True Blood (HBO)
- 2006 BMI Award for Music for Film: The Dukes of Hazzard
|- ! scope="row" rowspan="2"| | rowspan="6"| Primetime Emmy Award | rowspan="4"| Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music | The Americans |
| rowspan="2" |
|---|
| Hemlock Grove |
| |- ! scope="row" rowspan="3"| | Carnival Row |
| rowspan="4" |
|---|
| rowspan="2" |
| |- | rowspan="2"|Outstanding Music Composition for a Limited Series, Movie, or Special | |- ! scope="row" rowspan="1"| | A Very British Scandal: Episode 1 |
References
References
- Sobol, Gianna. "Q&A with Composer Nathan Barr". Inside True Blood Blog.
- BMI. "2010 BMI Film/TV Awards Winners". Broadcast Music Incorporated.
- BMI. "BMI Film & Television Awards Tout Composers of Year's Top Film, Television, & Cable Music". Broadcast Music Incorporated.
- BMI. "2006 BMI Film & Television Awards". BMI.
- "Nathan W. Barr". [[Academy of Television Arts & Sciences]].
- "Nathan Barr". [[Academy of Television Arts & Sciences]].
::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::