Biography

Kris Bowers is an Academy Award® winning filmmaker and an Emmy, Grammy, and Oscar-nominated composer and pianist. His 2024 score for DreamWorks Animation's The Wild Robot garnered widespread acclaim, including nominations from the Academy Awards®, Golden Globes, Critics' Choice Awards, and BAFTAs, as well as the award for Outstanding Original Score for a Studio Film from the Society of Composers and Lyricists (SCL).

Bowers won his first Academy Award® for his 2023 documentary short film The Last Repair Shop. Co-directed with Ben Proudfoot, the Breakwater Studios produced film spotlights some of the individuals working at the Los Angeles Unified School District's music instrument repair shop, the last to provide free instrument repairs to the city's public school students.

Following the The Last Repair Shop's success, Bowers and Proudfoot launched a $15 million capital campaign, in partnership with the LAUSD Education Foundation, to support the music education of the next generation of Angelenos.

As a Juilliard-trained pianist, Bowers has performed around the world, including at the White House for President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama in 2016. Over his career, Bowers has had the honor of collaborating with artists of all facets, including Kobe Bryant, Mahershala Ali, Ava DuVernay, and Shonda Rhimes, as well as recording and performing with Q-Tip, Ludacris, Christian Rich, Marcus Miller, and José James.

Bowers' diverse career as a performer, composer, and filmmaker informs his holistic approach to music; for 2018's Green Book, Bowers meticulously transcribed Don Shirley's recordings note for note in addition to composing the score. Bowers also served as Mahershala Ali's on-screen hand-double for the film's piano close-up shots and spent three months teaching Ali to play piano.

Bowers blends his classical and jazz roots to discover new frontiers in music and film. Recently, Bowers has delivered genre-defying scores for Paramount's biopic Bob Marley: One Love, Ava DuVernay's Origin, as well as Warner Bros.' The Color Purple and King Richard, among others. Bowers has also composed music for television series When They See Us, Mrs. America, and in 2017 won a Daytime Emmy for his score to The Snowy Day. Since 2020, Bowers has scored Netflix's hit series Bridgerton.

Bowers has multiple projects in development through his company Et Al Studios Productions, which he co-founded with his wife, Briana Henry.
- IMDb mini biography by: Kris Bowers