AVAILABLE NOW: The Invitation (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) with music by Dara Taylor

Madison Gate Records is excited to announce the release of The Invitation (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) with haunting music by Dara Taylor. Coinciding with the film’s US & UK theatrical release, this 15-track album debuts today, August 26, on all major digital platforms. Click here for a list of the film’s international release dates.

A unique combination, Taylor’s score shifts from eerie strings, obscure clangs, and avant-garde melodies to beguiling gothic-romance symphonies. While one portion of the score is classically driven, the other utilizes synthetic and processed elements, such as percussive sounds from pottery and distorted vocals, experimenting with the different sounds the human body can create.

“I loved working on The Invitation because both director Jessica Thompson and the film encouraged me to really think outside the box when it came to sound pallets and motifs. I used strange esoteric synthetics, processed found sounds, and processed vocals, which I then blended with a large gothic orchestra to mirror the blend of modern and gothic in the story. An added fun bonus was finding ways to add bits of romanticism within the fabric of the story while keeping a feeling of unease. I was also thrilled that Jess and I were so in sync on the prevalent use of female vocals throughout the score,” says Taylor.

In Screen Gems’ The Invitation, after the death of her mother and having no other known relatives, Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel) takes a DNA test…and discovers a long-lost cousin she never knew she had. Invited by her newfound family to a lavish wedding in the English countryside, she’s at first seduced by the sexy aristocrat host but is soon thrust into a nightmare of survival as she uncovers twisted secrets in her family’s history and the unsettling intentions behind their sinful generosity.

Directed by Jessica M. Thompson. Written by Blair Butler. Produced by Emile Gladstone. Executive Producers Michael P. Flannigan and Jessica M. Thompson. The film stars Nathalie Emmanuel, Thomas Doherty, Stephanie Corneliussen, Alana Boden, Courtney Taylor, Hugh Skinner, and Sean Pertwee.

Dara Taylor has emerged as a fresh voice in the world of scoring music to picture as evidenced by her score to Amazon Studios film The Tender Bar, directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker George Clooney and her co-score to the Lionsgate comedy Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar starring Kristen Wiig and Jamie Dornan. Her credits include the action crime drama Echo Boomers starring Michael Shannon, the Netflix series Bookmarks, the Netflix docuseries Trial By Media, the FX series Pride, and the Karen Allen-starred film Colewell, for which she won a 2019 Hollywood Music in Media award. She most recently worked on Sony Pictures/Screen Gems’ The Invitation.

In 2015, Dara was nominated for a Hollywood Music in Media Award for her score on the short film Undetectable, and in 2016, she participated in the Women in Film’s Women Composers in Media concert. In 2018, Dara was chosen as a fellow for the Sundance Institute Composers Lab and the following year she was chosen as one of the BMI Conducting for Composers Fellows. In 2021 she was chosen for both the Grammy NEXT program and the coveted Universal Composers Initiative.

Dara is a proud Executive Committee member for the Composers Diversity Collective, as well as a member of the Television Academy, Recording Academy, Society of Composers and Lyricists, Alliance of Women Film Composers, and Women in Media.