Director Damien Chazelle’s 2016 film, La La Land, delighted audiences with its bright colour palette and whimsical modern-fairytale feel. And helping him bring that jazz fantasia to life was his former Harvard roommate and go-to soundtrack provider, Justin Hurwitz, who crafted an Oscar-winning score that combined intimate piano-bar instrumentals with wondrous orchestrations redolent of 1940s Hollywood classics. La La Land expanded upon the jazz fundamentals Hurwitz brought to Chazelle’s previous film, Whiplash, but the duo have since travelled far from the basement bebop club. For the director’s 2018 sci-fi drama, First Man, Hurwitz delivered dramatic symphonic themes as grand as outer space itself.