Meet Barlow & Bear: The Grammy-Winning Musical Duo Behind the Moana 2 Soundtrack (Exclusive)

• Barlow & Bear share their musical backgrounds — and what brought them together
• The duo reveals the inspiration and challenges that arose during the making Moana 2 sound track
• Emily Bear talks about leaving her record label since the child prodigy — while Abigail Barlow talks about finding out she can do more than just write pop songs

As Grammy winners at the ages of 23 and 25, there’s no telling how far Barlow & Bear will go.

Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear, who are musicians in their own right, met by chance five years ago. Now, not only are they inseparable, but they’ve embarked on their biggest project yet: over the past two years, they’ve been composing the soundtrack for the long-awaited Moana sequel, will be released on November 27.

“It’s one of those little life decisions that ends up changing everything,” says Bear. Barlow adds: “We were writing songs together and we clicked straight away. Everything just fell into place.”

Creating a soundtrack for Moana 2 It made Barlow & Bear the youngest composers in history to write all the songs for an animated Disney film and the first female writing team to do so. Fittingly, the duo were only a few years older than Moana when they embarked on the project – and they think she’s “such a badass.”

Before hooking up, Barlow and Bear were making their way in music, with Barlow building a career in pop songwriting and building her social media presence. Bear, who is a pianist, composer and performer, was a child prodigy who was taken in by Quincy Jones and toured as pianist on Beyoncé’s 2023 Renaissance World Tour.

“We have such different musical backgrounds and look at music in completely different ways, which is why it works,” adds Bear, who has made two films released this holiday season. “Because why would you want to work with someone who thinks the same way you do.”

Meet Barlow & Bear below:

Barlow & Bear.

Alex Feggi

Before you met, you were each trying to break into music. What was the trip like?

Barlow: I grew up in Alabama, a big musical theater girl. I was very serious about it and thought I would go to school for it. But then I participated in a scholarship program where I met a songwriter and she produced her own pop music. We wrote a song together and I immediately said, “Oh, never mind. This is what I want to do with my life.” Then I graduated high school a little early and moved to Los Angeles when I turned 18. I started writing, doing the whole thing, doing the dream thing, which just brought me back to social media and growing my audience myself. Then me and Emily met during that time when I was on social media and doing pop stuff. We started writing musical theater together, which neither of us had done.

Medo: I started when I was very young. Like 2 or 3. We had a little white upright piano in my house, and my older siblings would play, and I’d switch to the piano as a baby… and instead of hitting the keys, I’d play scales and stuff. Then I actually started writing music and creating songs on the piano before I started taking piano lessons, which was when I was 4 years old. I started with the classics. I love my piano lessons, but classical always felt very… I had to play exactly what was on the page and nothing else. It was like being put in a little box.

Then I discovered jazz and I was like, “Oh my God, this is amazing.” Then I met Quincy Jones when I was 8, 9 years old. He signed with me and was my manager for a long time. I toured with him for a long time with my jazz trio, but also played some concerts. Then I discovered the soundtrack and I was like, “That’s it. That’s the one.” I just fell in love and started studying at the NYU Film Scoring Program when I was about 10 years old. They really took me under their wing and taught me so much of what I do now. The first time I heard my own music performed by an orchestra, I said, “Yes.”

I had never written a song until this moment. Then I got into high school and I said, “I want to write music that my friends want to listen to,” and I started writing songs and fell in love with it because it’s a whole new world. Then I graduated high school early, went on tour and came to Los Angeles. I was supposed to go to school then I was signed, now, by both of our agents, Richard Kraft. I was 16 and I said, “OK, there’s no point in going to school now.” So I stayed here and began to aspire to be a composer. And I met Abigail.

How did you meet?

Barlow: We met through a mutual friend who had an idea for a show and thought we would work well together, but the show will be very much pop musical theatre. So we went into the room together after he said that, and some kind of magic was created. [But] we didn’t know that until we met our friends for the first time. She came to my house, I made her cookies.

Medo: We watched Bachelor. [Back then,] I was alone. I had no friends. It was shit. And then we met and we were like, “Oh my God, you get it.” Because we didn’t go to college, we didn’t have any friends, and we were just trying to make ends meet. And there was a mutual understanding that was really special.

Barlow & Bear.

Alex Feggi

You won a Grammy for your first collaboration, Unofficial Bridgerton music album. How did that feel?

Barlow: That’s what really brought us together and taught us what our superpowers were musically. I didn’t know I was capable of anything other than a pop song. Then that experience showed me that I could have a career in writing music and telling stories through music

Bear: It showed a lot to me personally because I’ve done a lot in my career, but a lot of it was when I was a kid. For me personally, Bridgerton the experience was the first thing that reached a ton of people who didn’t know anything about my background or anything I did when I was a kid. It was purely based on the work I did as an adult. I felt that bridge-crossing moment for me where it was like, “OK, I’ve left the child prodigy stuff in the past and now I’m…” The dancing monkey is gone, the shock factor is gone, and people respect me for the work I do .

But it’s crazy that a concept musical based on a TV show that we wrote for fun during COVID was the thing that opened all the doors for us. It wasn’t planned. It started as something fun to pass the time while we had no job and no money during COVID, and it just grew on us. Bloomed and bloomed and flew away like a dandelion.

How did you react when you received the call? Moana 2 two years ago?

Barlow: “Is this real life?”

Bear: Like, “Really?” And from that first call, we learned about Moana’s journey that she would be going on and immediately felt a connection to the many struggles she went through as a young woman trying to find her place in the world.

When you were working on the soundtrack, where did you find inspiration?

Bear: When you write for TV and film, you have to write for everyone and everything in all styles. So when we got this job, we started listening to a lot of music, especially culture. When you listen to a lot of music, you start to understand patterns. And then, you can pick and choose and incorporate some of that while still staying true to our songwriting style. Also, Disney takes care of culture. The amount of research that goes into every detail, from the way Moana’s hair is parted to the engravings on the side of the canoe that you never see is insane. They provided us with tons of amazing information.

Barlow: And a lot of amazing people. In the screening, they talked about the cultural commission of Oceania and we met with real-life signposts. That was really, really fascinating and I think it informed almost every part of the songwriting process.

Barlow & Bear.

Alex Feggi

Did you encounter any challenges along the way?

Bear: The whole thing is quite daunting, but I feel that challenge is what makes the best music because it makes you do better and do more.

Barlow: You have experience writing and scoring for television and film, so you are well-versed in notes and the note-taking process. But as a pop songwriter, I never had sheet music. I was the only person I was trying to please. I had to go back and rewrite, which was hard on my mental health because I said, “Oh, I’m bad,” every time they said, “No, this is wrong.”

Medo: And this is not just one or two rewrites. That’s like a thousand.

How did you relate to Moana’s journey?

Barlow: Ultimately, she becomes a better host in this sequel. Like I said, this process, I felt like life was a classroom and I learned so much about myself, about this industry. I think it’s the way I relate to her that I just feel like I’ve grown a lot, and I’m proud of myself for that because it’s not easy. Being a young artist is such a mind— sometimes. So having a path that was like a brick road laid out in front of me was the greatest joy, and it felt like I was following a fire in the sky like Moana.

The Bear: Especially in this movie, Moana makes mistakes, but she learns from them instead of letting them beat her. Because it’s Moana. I think it’s a powerful thing to see on screen and write about, and it’s very real because we all screw up and it’s just part of life. It’s important to learn and accept yourself as you do these things and as you make mistakes and stumble instead of feeling sorry for yourself and letting it drag you down.

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Source: HIS Education