On ‘Music from Macbeth,’ Gaelynn Lea Turns a King’s Tragedy into Personal Triumph

By Greg Cahill | From the September/October 2025 issue of Strings

Call it a Gothic rock opera. On Music from Macbeth, violinist and composer Gaelynn Lea draws from a chic Broadway production that recast Shakespeare’s beleaguered Scottish monarch as a modern-day autocrat. It is based on original music Lea composed for a 2022 Broadway retelling of Macbeth that starred ex–James Bond actor Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga. The recently released album features an adaptation of Lea’s often ominous, sometimes melodic, always powerful original score to that five-act play, with a lyrical opener (“Starving”) and closer (“Perfect”). It’s music worthy of Australian Goth-rocker Nick Cave. Music from Macbeth is Lea’s first album in five years. It blends droning rock-violins, electronics, traditional fiddling, twangy guitars, whistling, and rock drums. 

The 41-year-old Minnesota-born violinist and inspirational advocate for accessibility in the arts—she was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, a genetic disorder of the bones and limbs—was the winner of the 2016 NPR Tiny Desk concert contest. Lea, whose music has been described as “Velvet Underground meets Little House on the Prairie” by multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Ylvisaker, has performed and recorded with Michael Stipe (R.E.M.), Wilco, and the Decemberists, among others.

Next spring, Lea will release It Wasn’t Meant to Be Perfect (Algonquin Press), a memoir about disability, music, and what she calls the messy creativity of an artist’s life. “It took me 15 months to write the first draft and about as many months to edit,” she says. “I’m so excited to get it out into the world finally. I hope it provides people with a new perspective on disability, making music, and what it means to be creative in art and in life.”

Strings recently caught up with Lea just before she launched a late-spring UK tour.

What is creatively satisfying about writing for the stage? 

Before I ever wrote a single song, I was a fiddler and violinist for 17 years. But then when I got into composing, it was a very exciting new challenge. However, typically I write folk songs with lyrics. The Macbeth music couldn’t have been more different. It was fun to explore making experimental, totally instrumental music. Plus, I was making it to the script, so although my fingerprint is on there, so is Shakespeare’s. It’s different from writing a song about a struggle I’ve gone through personally. It’s more dramatic.

What drew you to this project in 2022? 

It actually happened out of the blue. I received a phone call from the director Sam Gold in the summer of 2021, who had been listening to my music ever since the Tiny Desk contest. He asked if I would be interested in composing the music. At first, I didn’t even believe it was Broadway! His vision for the project really aligned with the kind of music I like to make: experimental, layered, and moody string music. I readily agreed.

Had you composed for theater before? 

I had never composed for a play, but way back in 2011 I got introduced to the idea in a project with Alan Sparhawk of [the indie rock band] Low. We did a live score to a [1920] Lon Chaney film called The Penalty, where we created different themes for the characters and added ambiance, texture, and suspense throughout the silent film. This was great practice for making the Macbeth music all those years later, although, of course, I didn’t know it at the time.

What challenges did you encounter writing for Macbeth? 

The first big challenge was to get everything recorded in time. I started in early December, and I had to be done by March 1. The recording engineer and I recorded three nights a week for several hours, getting a few cues done each night. I’d send them to the director the next day and he would send them back if he didn’t feel they fit, which was approximately a third of them. Then it was back to the drawing board. We did manage to get everything done in time—we wrapped up on February 28—and then I went out to New York for March and April of 2022. I attended rehearsals and previews, and that’s when the biggest challenge of the project arose. The timings of the music I’d recorded didn’t always fit with the live performance onstage, because the pacing varies slightly every night. I ended up having to deconstruct a lot of the cues and add padding underneath so they could be triggered in smaller portions to better align with the action onstage. It was a very customized score, and it felt more like a movie soundtrack than it did ambient music in the background.

You’ve said you wanted the music to reflect the journey embarked on by these tragic figures. How did you accomplish that? 

Each main character had their own melodic theme, but it wasn’t presented the same way all the way through the play. For example, when Macbeth was first introduced, his theme sounded almost classical in nature—I played it very clean and precise. As the play went on, it grew more distorted as he descended into madness. Sometimes it was echoing; sometimes I dropped it an octave—anything to show that he was not doing well, so to speak. By the end of the play, his theme sounded utterly grotesque. I played it as heavily and scratchily as possible, so that it was almost hard to listen to. Not every character’s theme underwent the same metamorphosis, but they were all presented differently depending on what was happening onstage. This was one of my favorite aspects of the project.

How closely did you work with the director? 

The first thing I did was read through the script and mark down every place I thought music might amplify the action onstage. Then I met with the director, and we selected the final list of cues. In the end, I recorded 50 musical cues. I wanted it to feel organic, not out of place or too jarring. When you watch a movie with a really good soundtrack, you only notice the music occasionally, even though it’s adding to the show everywhere. It’s woven in. I think we accomplished that.

What prompted you to release this adapted version? 

I knew from the beginning that I wanted to release this as a soundtrack. I had the rights to the music, after all, and I had such a clear idea of what I wanted it to sound like. The reality of live theater is that many changes occurred to the score throughout the rehearsal and preview process—some of my favorite cues were cut, others were altered dramatically. It all had to do with what served the play properly. It’s just part of the deal. But I knew in my heart what I wanted to hear—that’s why I released it.

What do people need to know about this album? 

I guess it would be fun for them to know that the music is tied closely to the script. That’s why I broke the album into five acts, because it really is timed out that way. I wanted the music to feel live, even though it was prerecorded. Eventually, I will release a second version of the album where I break each act into smaller parts, in order to make it clearer which specific lines match up to which cues. In the theater, it felt like the music was 100 percent working in tandem with the action onstage, and I think if you read the script while listening to the shorter cues, you could have the same experience. Also, I think it’s fun to note that there are many ways to compose. I didn’t write down a single note. I just sang things into my phone and then went into the studio. Even if the music was supposed to be played live, I could have worked with an arranger or an orchestrator to help me bring that vision to life. You don’t have to have every skill on the planet to do fun, creative composing projects.

Tell me about your work as a disability activist. How has that evolved? 

I began getting more involved in disability advocacy once I began to tour. On the road, it quickly became clear to me that accessibility wasn’t just a problem in my hometown—it wasn’t being prioritized in the music industry anywhere. It was difficult for disabled guests to get into many of the venues at which I performed, especially if they used things like wheelchairs or walkers. It was even worse for me to get onstage or to access the green rooms. For the first few years, I allowed the venue staff to lift my wheelchair up onstage, but eventually I felt hypocritical about this. I realized nothing was going to change if I didn’t set a new standard for myself. That is when I committed to only playing at accessible venues, and I started being much more vocal about accessibility in the music industry. It’s important to me because I think disability culture is an undervalued part of our society’s dialogue. We have a lot to offer in terms of perspectives and creativity, but if the industry isn’t accessible to us, it’s difficult for us to get our views and our art out there. I want to see an industry that is more welcoming to everyone. I also want to see nondisabled artists join me in ensuring the venues they play are accessible to disabled people.

What are some other challenges you have faced as a violinist?

I started playing the violin in fifth grade after an orchestra came to my school and I fell in love with the sound of the strings. Luckily the orchestra conductor at my junior high was very open-minded and helped me to figure out a way to play that accommodated my short limbs. I have a physical disability called osteogenesis imperfecta, which is a collagen disorder that makes my bones more brittle than normal. My limbs broke in utero and healed at unnatural angles. So because of this, I wasn’t able to play my violin on my shoulder—I just couldn’t reach. So I play my violin up-and-down like a small cello, and I hold my bow like an upright-bass player. Once we figured out a method that would work for me, it wasn’t particularly challenging to learn the violin—ha ha, not any more than anyone else, at least! However, I use a half-size bow, and I can only use three fingers on my left hand, so I do have to modify fingerings and bowings for classical music. This meant it took me a little longer to practice fast passages in classical music back in high school. This is less of an issue now that I am playing my own songs, because I can write music that works for my body.

What Gaelynn Lea Plays

“All I know is that the violin is about 100 years old; it was a 7/8-size that says it’s a Vuillaume copy. I got it in eighth grade, but I really like the way it sounds. It’s special to me partly because it was the first violin of the person who later went on to become a doctor and deliver my mom. I got to play it for him in the nursing home before he passed away. He said to me, ‘When I got that violin, I cried because I wanted a Boy Scout uniform!’ But he went on to play violin his whole life. I loved knowing that particular instrument’s backstory—it has been such a big part of my life. However, since that recording was made, I have switched violins. My new instrument is a 2001 Ivan Dunov violin, made in Bulgaria. I got it from the older sister of one of my best friends, the person who got me into traditional fiddle music. She wasn’t going to play it anymore, and she wanted it to go to a good home. At first, I was reluctant to switch—my violin is like an extension of my body—but I had to admit it has a bigger sound, and it still has a lot of the same brightness I liked about my other violin. My old violin will always hold a place in my heart!”