Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear — best known as the musical duo Barlow & Bear — have set sail to their most ambitious project yet: working on the score of Disney's highly anticipated animated sequel Moana 2.
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You may know Barlow & Bear from The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical Album, or perhaps from Barlow's bisexual anthem, "Strike Out." Either way, this pair rose to fame and success as they combined their love of pop culture with their own distinct musical style.
Their work on The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical Album resulted in them winning the 2022 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, which made them the youngest winners in the history of that category.
Now, Barlow & Bear have also become the youngest-ever composers — and first female writing team — to make songs for a Disney animated film. And what better project to navigate than the highly anticipated sequel to Moana?
Moana 2 takes place three years after the first film and reunites Moana (voiced by Out100 honoree Auli'i Cravalho) and Maui (Dwayne Johnson, a.k.a. The Rock) for another adventure. It's been eight years since the first film — so not only has the character of Moana aged, but so has Auli'i, which brings a different vocal quality to the sequel.
"We kind of wanted the music to have roots in the world that was already so beloved," Bear tells Out. "As the characters have grown, the world has also gotten bigger. Moana's gotten older, and wiser, and less naive. Maui has grown up, too. Everyone that we know has evolved in some sort of way, and we wanted the music to reflect that. So, the tone of Moana's lyrics is going to change."
Barlow adds:
"Auli'i, as a vocal performer, has evolved and grown; her instrument is crazy. She is singing these songs! Getting to push her a little bit with the evolution of the songs was really exciting. We all pushed one another, you know? The energy, when we were recording together, was really amazing."
Moana in 'Moana 2.'
Walt Disney Animation Studios
In terms of other musical projects, Barlow & Bear bring up another property that they'd love to adapt into music: the beloved 2017 novel The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid.
They also mention a desire to tackle A Court of Thorns and Roses. Barlow explains, "We'd have to figure out how to make it the second book [A Court of Mist and Fury] because…"
Bear chimes in, "People were hard on Tamlin, but maybe that's just me."
(L-R) Maui and Moana in 'Moana 2.'Walt Disney Animation StudiosDuring the process of expanding their creative circle and learning about animated features, Barlow finds that "Everything about the process is magical. [It's] the closest thing to actual magic, I think, on the planet."
And even though they've been working on Moana 2 for a while, the talented duo is still able to find magic and wonder as the project evolves.
Bear notes, "After almost three years of [doing] this, I still don't really know how anything is made… because it all goes through like 100 steps until reaching the final product."
"Even just the difference between seeing final animation with or without lighting!" she adds. "But it's been a really cool process. Just watching the Disney geniuses tear apart the story, and put it back together, and be a part of that conversation… it's been amazing."
Moana 2 opens Wednesday, November 27 only in theaters.
