Making a bold musical about the Shakers? Daniel Blumberg’s songs brought the world in tune

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I’ve always been struck by the Shakers’ beautiful music, especially “Simple Gifts,” which Aaron Copland made so famous in “Appalachian Spring.” So, when I heard they were making a film about Ann Lee, the founder of this unique 18th-century group, it felt natural that it would be a musical. But Ann Lee wasn’t just any woman, and this film, directed by Mona Fastvold, isn’t your typical musical either. It promises to be something truly special.

“Ann Lee was very radical and extreme,” says composer Daniel Blumberg, “and Mona is as well.”

The film, envisioned by Fastvold and Blumberg, uses music in everything – not just in traditional songs. Sounds like heavy breathing, heartbeat-like thumping, and even the stamping of feet during religious rituals become part of the musical experience. The score incorporates songs inspired by Shaker hymns, performed by Amanda Seyfried and the cast, and extends to everyday sounds like wind, creaking ships, and even a distant cow.

Blumberg, a 35-year-old composer visiting Los Angeles from England, explained over Zoom, ‘A cow actually walked by while we were working on the song ‘I Love Mother.” Though he’s a bit uncomfortable with the attention – this is only his fourth film score – he’s happy to talk about how he creates music and praise the people he works with. ‘We were literally trying to tune the cows to the song’s melody,’ he added.

The film begins with a look at Lee’s difficult upbringing in Manchester, where her mother soothes her with a tune based on the classic Shaker hymn “Beautiful Treasures.” This melody is then fully realized in the film’s score, played on the celeste and enhanced by a choir, creating a sense of reverence. Throughout the film, the music—the score, songs, and sounds of the setting—work together seamlessly, each element contributing to a unified and immersive experience.

Blumberg, a U.K.-based indie singer-songwriter who gained a dedicated following and recently won an Oscar for ‘The Brutalist,’ describes the project as risky. He adds that he thrives on that level of challenge when creating art, preferring to work where things feel uncertain and potentially groundbreaking.

A striking sequence shows Lee, newly married, experiencing intense, religiously-focused intimacy (which leads her to later reject physical connection), giving birth to multiple children, and then grieving their deaths. Her sorrow is expressed through a passionate dance dedicated to God. Sounds of intimacy and childbirth blend with prayers and a mother’s heartbroken wails, all set to a calming instrumental score by Blumberg – a piece for bells and strings – and accompanied by Amanda Seyfried singing “Beautiful Treasures.”

Fastvold explains she really wanted the film to feel hypnotic. Speaking while driving during the busy awards season, she said the movie needed to be experienced through the senses. She believes the long, flowing scenes of dancing, spoken word, and confession were a big part of what initially drew audiences in.

“If it’s just someone preaching to you,” she adds, “I certainly can’t connect to that.”

The 44-year-old director, raised without religion in Norway, made a surprisingly heartfelt film about a very strict American religious group. Instead of criticizing the group’s beliefs, the director portrays them with complete sincerity and respect. In a pivotal scene, after the character Lee believes she is the female version of Jesus Christ, actress Seyfried sings a powerful and deeply emotional plea for righteousness. Both the camera work and the music fully embrace and convey Lee’s unwavering faith.

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Amanda Seyfried, the director Mona Fastvold, choreographer Celia Rowlson-Hall, and cinematographer William Rexer share how they transformed the beliefs of the Shakers into a vibrant and unconventional musical experience.

Fastvold explains, “I didn’t want to laugh at the characters, but with them. Their innocence can be amusing and sweet, and I certainly didn’t want to make fun of them. It was a challenge, though, and a bit frightening to attempt.”

When Seyfried read the screenplay two years ago, she experienced some of that intimidation.

She admitted the script was the most confusing she’d encountered in a long time. While on a Zoom call and sipping tea, she explained that she kept noticing spaces marked for hymns and musical cues, and wasn’t sure how the sound would be used throughout the story. She didn’t see this as a negative, but it did raise a lot of questions for her.

Fastvold and her partner, Brady Corbet (who directed “The Brutalist”), wrote “The Testament of Ann Lee” together while also working on Corbet’s earlier, critically acclaimed film. Blumberg, a musician with both solo work and experience in bands like Cajun Dance Party and Yuck, first became friends with Corbet about ten years ago, and the three of them quickly became very close.

I was really fascinated to learn that Mona Fastvold decided to direct “The World to Come” after listening to some records by composer David Blumberg back in 2020. It’s a beautiful, quiet romance set in a harsh American frontier, and she’s described being struck by a kind of bittersweet quality in his music – a beautiful contrast between sadness and something slightly off-key. She says his compositions have this really moving, melancholic feel to them.

Fastvold brought in Blumberg, a newcomer to film scoring, to work on her movie. She wanted him to feel the atmosphere of the story—a sense of time travel within the woods—so she invited him to the Romanian set, even letting him experience the sounds of the countryside, like sheep grazing. She playfully cast him in a small role, having him sell a dress to Katherine Waterston’s character. This approach reflected Fastvold and Corbet’s developing style: creating visually rich films with limited budgets, using beautiful international locations to represent historical America, and involving the cast and crew—even friends and family—in the filmmaking process.

When Fastvold began working on her new musical about the Shakers, she knew she wanted Blumberg involved from the very beginning, alongside choreographer Celia Rowlson-Hall. They needed to work closely together, so they essentially lived and worked together to develop the project, as Fastvold explains: “We kind of move in together for a while and just start figuring it out.”

The team talked about captivating the audience, explaining that filmmaking provides powerful tools to do so. According to Blumberg, these tools include visuals, sound, and writing, all of which should be used to their fullest potential. Editing allows for rapid shifts in time, while sound design can transport viewers both to the characters’ location and to fantastical places. Ultimately, their goal was to create a truly immersive experience, not just telling a story, but placing the audience within it.

Fastvold and Blumberg immersed themselves in the thousands of songs the Shakers left behind, including hymns and what the group called “gift songs” and “dance songs.”

Fastvold recalls them wondering how their work connected to existing musical traditions and what new perspective they were adding. As they saw it, that’s the essence of folk music: it’s constantly evolving, being reshaped by each new generation and then shared again.

The team used existing Shaker songs whenever possible, and when they didn’t have what they needed, composer David Blumberg created original music. He was inspired by the wordless, improvisational prayers, called niguns, he remembered from his childhood synagogue experiences. Like many Shaker songs, these pieces were simple, repetitive melodies meant as prayers to God. Blumberg then developed the harmonies and created demo recordings, singing all the parts himself.

He described it as a really stressful time, explaining that the music was crucial to setting the film’s rhythm. Unlike fixing things in post-production, this decision would heavily influence how the movie felt, so there was a lot riding on getting it right.

I have to admit, even Amanda Seyfried seemed a little apprehensive taking on this role. Sure, she’s proven she can carry a tune – ‘Mamma Mia!’ and ‘Les Misérables’ are testaments to that – but this project was unlike anything she’d done before. It really demanded she take a huge risk and just believe in the story.

Seyfried expected Mona to capture stunning visuals and knew Daniel would be supportive throughout the process. She felt safe and well-cared for, but at the time, she wasn’t sure she could rely on her own abilities as a singer or musician. It was a completely unfamiliar and frightening experience for her.

All the songs were recorded beforehand and played during filming. Seyfried’s first studio recording was an unaccompanied song for a later scene, with the lyrics, “How can I but love my dear faithful children?” She admitted she felt awful while recording it.

Seyfried admits she was really critical of her own singing. She says the song, while lovely, was difficult for her to perform and she didn’t like how she sounded. They recorded it multiple times, and her voice became strained and dry.

Blumberg carefully explored different vocal ranges to find what felt best for her. She reflects, “Looking back, I realize how fortunate I was.”

Working with director Damien Chazelle on La La Land helped Jessica Seyfried gain a new understanding of her character and her own voice. She used to be very self-critical of her singing, but this role offered a different kind of artistic freedom. Her character wasn’t meant to be a technically perfect singer; she sang to express her emotions, find liberation, and connect with her spirituality, which, in turn, allowed Seyfried to feel more free as a performer.

Filming took place in Budapest after a lot of practice and continued rehearsals. Throughout the shoot, Blumberg was present on set, playing a small keyboard to help the actors, including Thomasin McKenzie and Lewis Pullman, who also perform songs in the movie. Actors sometimes used a simple beat in their ears to stay on time, and other times they followed a rhythm created by the dancers’ footwork. They sang live while also lip-syncing, and Fastvold collected a vast library of live vocal and physical sounds to use when editing the final soundtrack.

What I really love about her music is how real and unfiltered it feels. She wasn’t aiming for perfection or a polished sound at all – she wanted it to be raw and genuine. It’s not about putting on a show; it always feels like she’s singing from a deeply personal place, whether it’s joy or heartache. It’s like listening to a prayer or someone pouring out their soul.

Fastvold involved everyone on set – including the main actors, Hungarian background performers, and even people like the dialect coach and family members of the crew – in a choreographed sequence.

She explains that everyone who visited the set ended up in the film. The lines between cast and crew were blurred – she intentionally included everyone as part of the creative process. We see Daniel Blumberg again, this time participating in scenes depicting Shaker religious practices, and he also performs an original song, “Clothed by the Sun,” with Seyfried during the credits.

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In a recent discussion, Oscar-nominated directors Jon M. Chu, Nia DaCosta, Guillermo del Toro, Mona Fastvold, Rian Johnson, and Benny Safdie talked about the ups and downs of the filmmaking process.

However, his work wasn’t finished yet. Using a rough cut of the film and his original songs, Blumberg created a musical score that gently hinted at the melodies to come and created a dreamlike, immersive atmosphere. He became fascinated with the sound of bells, and after discovering a handbell from the time period, he eventually rented fifty church bells – each tuned to a different note – and arranged them across the floor of his apartment.

He built on his use of bells by adding the celeste—a keyboard instrument that sounds like bells—and enhanced this with a small string section, a choir, and even an electric guitar at times.

I learned that it was Blumberg who came up with the really cool idea of having Phil Menton and Maggie Nichols – who’s also in the movie – each improvise a vocal track over the entire film. Then, working with Steve Single on the mix, Fastvold and Blumberg would sometimes add bits of those improvised recordings to the rest of the soundtrack, just to give it a little extra something special.

We’d often discuss what Maggie should do next, like, ‘Let’s see what Maggie’s up to here,’ and then look at her character outline. We’d then brainstorm possibilities, such as, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if she went in that direction?’ or ‘Maybe she could be humming by the window?’ Sometimes we’d even consider more dramatic options, like having something feel like a divine message for Ann.

Blumberg and Fastvold have created a truly singular film. It’s a character study set in the past, delivered with a dreamlike quality and evoking the feeling of religious ecstasy. Through music, they explore an isolated and unfamiliar community, yet manage to connect with universal human experiences.

Blumberg particularly loves a scene where sailors carrying Lee and her followers to America yell at them to be quiet while they’re singing. He explains that the Shakers initially sound rough and discordant, reflecting how outsiders might have perceived them. But then, a few moments later, when they’re praying on the ship, Blumberg uses sound effects to create a sense of the powerful inner experience they were having – almost as if the sounds represent their spiritual feelings.

Similar to the way the Shakers meticulously crafted their music and furniture, “Ann Lee” was created with dedication and attention to detail by a close-knit, community-focused group.

Blumberg explains they worked in isolation, without input from the film industry. Their main worry was that if the project was released, people would think it was completely crazy. From the beginning, Blumberg’s goal was to take anything promising and push it as far as possible, really maximizing everything to its fullest extent.

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2025-12-24 14:04