Kurt Farquhar may be the hardest-working composer in television, which is what makes it so fantastic that he’s finally been recognized with his first Emmy Award nomination. It’s actually a surprise that he hasn’t gotten one before, with as many excellent scores as he has to his name. He’s nominated for the hit CBS daytime drama Beyond the Gates, but viewers also know Kurt from the likes of Black Lightning, The Neighborhood and the Emmy-nominated The King of Queens.

In an interview with TVBrittanyF.com, Kurt spoke about what it meant to receive his first Emmy nomination. He also delved into his creative process and spoke about some of the collaborators who’ve made it possible. Plus, find out about some of his exciting upcoming projects as he continues to expand his creative palette.

Brittany Frederick: What does it feel like to be a first-time Emmy nominee? Did you have any thought that this was a possibility?

Kurt Farquhar: I’ve been doing television for 38 years, and I’ve never even been nominated. Even the times when everybody was saying, oh, my God, the’s not only going to get nominated, he’s going to win—I’ve somehow or another been able to avoid that for 38 years straight. [Laughs.] So, no, I didn’t think anything was coming. I was about as shocked as anybody could be.

I’m really excited for not only for myself, but I have a wonderful team of writers that work on this show. We’re doing 265 episodes per season and that’s a lot. When you consider most primetime shows [are] only like 22 episodes a season. And if it’s streaming, you’re lucky if it’s 10. So to pump out this much music and to keep the quality of it really high is something that I’m proud of for myself and for the other team members. Ashley Neumeister, who’s the amazing music supervisor on the show, and Daeus Cannon, Zuberi Mackson, and Josh Mosley are all co-writers with me on it. [They’re] just amazing. And I just can’t say enough about what Ashley Neumeister does for this project. She’s just brilliant, and an amazing, amazing music supervising artist. Just love working with her.

Now that you’ve been nominated, is there something about Beyond the Gates that you think people responded to, in order for you to finally get that Emmy consideration?

If I actually knew, I would have done this at least several decades ago. [Laughs.] Sometimes people just connect with a show. This show hit sort of the zeitgeist, and it’s something that everybody was talking about on many, many levels. I noticed that from the beginning. I noticed that qualitatively how they were going about doing this show was very different than what people were used to seeing.

The main thing is they managed to maintain it, and every week to have an interesting story and to have something interesting for us to do. I’m shocked at what, to be honest with you, they’ve been able to pull off every week. There was a storyline recently about a tornado or something coming through town, nd how they pulled that off while having to do not just that episode, but four other episodes that week is just incredible. It really is amazing and a testament to the writers—Michelle Val Jean, who’s the head writer on the show.

I really want to give a big shout out to [producer] Sheila Ducksworth, who suggested that I come on this show. She said Kurt, I have something really amazing for you. You’re going to love this… And I’m so glad that she asked me to do this. I’m glad that I got a chance to do it. Because it’s more than the norm. It’s not your everyday daytime drama. It really has a lot going on. A lot of interesting stories. The cast is amazing—Tamara Tunie, Karla Mosley, and so many of the other actors and actresses. It’s not just me and the music. This series got nominated for 15 Emmy Awards in our first season out. I don’t think any daytime drama has done that before. And that’s 15 in our first season, right out the gate.

That speaks to what everybody is doing along the line—again, not just me, [but also] the actors, the writers, the set designers, and the people doing costumes, and the directors. It’s an amazing, amazing job that everybody’s doing on every single level. So I’m not shocked that the show ended up doing pretty well in the Emmy [nominations]. I will say I was shocked that I was able to bump into one.

For Beyond the Gates viewers who are just discovering your sound, are there other projects that you’d recommend they also give a listen to?

I’ve been terribly fortunate to have worked on a lot of really good shows. Black Lightning is one of them; that’s just a really special score that we got to do… I was combing through some music, trying to put together a reel as we composers do to go out for jobs, and I heard some of the music from Stitchers. I went and checked out an episode and I said wow, another really, really good show that we had. I’ll be honest with you—I don’t even know how they allowed me to do some of the music that I was doing on that show. [Laughs.]

We just released the fourth and final season for Proud Family: Louder and Prouder. Anybody who isn’t acquainted with the original Proud Family, which was done 25 years ago—a lot of people don’t know that the theme song was sung by Solange [Knowles] and her sister Beyonce. We were in the studio with Destiny’s Child recording the theme song for that. The show got rebooted about four years ago, and it’s fantastic. If you haven’t seen that show, you really have to see it. It is some of the most well-written animation I’ve ever seen… There’s also a Christmas special that’s getting ready to come out, I believe November 27th. We just finished it.

I’ve done shows like The Parkers and Moesha and Girlfriends and The Game and all of that stuff back in the ’90s. And then we switched to things like Real Husbands of Hollywood with Kevin Hart, which is, I still say, one of the best shows that’s just been overlooked…. I’m lucky enough to have done shows like The King of Queens and Soul Food and so many other shows and different movies. And I’ve been blessed. There’s just so many [people] that have entrusted their music to me and allowed me to do special things.

Iteresting note about The King of Queens. The bass part was being played by Darryl Jones, the bassist for the Rolling Stones, Miles Davis, Peter Gabriel, Madonna. He’s one of the greatest bass players in the world, and he was on that show.

With that much experience, not only in terms of quantity but the quality of the shows you’ve worked on, how much do you carry forward? Do you use things you learned on earlier series when you’re crafting music for Beyond the Gates or your other current projects?

The one thing that I think most composers would say is that we’re not just composers when we’re doing music to picture. We’re producers as well, in terms of the production of the music and the arrangement of the music and all of that. And I think that we’re always consistently learning ways to upgrade what it is that we do.

I think that right now I’m at a whole other level in terms of how I produce what it is that I do, and the way it sounds. Folks seem to think for some reason that music can be done for a cheeseburger and a Coke, and you can do it in 10 minutes, neither of which are true, but we definitely give that impression. [Laughs.]

I just finished a movie called ‘Tis So Sweet… By the time I had gotten the job, it was like two and a half weeks to get this [done]. So I’m putting together things with an orchestra overseas in Budapest, and when we were on the dub stage actually mixing the film, the mixers were turning around to me and saying, this didn’t exist two weeks and one day ago. They were just so stunned at how well put together it is. And that, to be honest with you, is the experience over the years of actually doing production.

I factor into it how to incorporate what the producers and the directors are feeling about it—what they want to feel about this music, what they want to get from it. Because when all is said and done, it’s not my album. It’s their film. It’s their film. It’s their story that they’re trying to tell… The actor had a moment and was expressing some particular emotion that the director wanted, that comes from the script that was written in the first place. That’s what you’re supporting.

Other than Beyond the Gates and you mentioned the Proud Family special, is there anything else you want viewers to be looking out for? What does the future hold for Kurt Farquhar?

There’s a series that I was doing called Sacrifice that was on BET and it went away for a while; it’s coming back on Paramount+ very soon. I don’t know the exact date… It was produced by Chris Stokes and it stars Paula Patton, but the executive producer on it was a gentleman by the name of Kevin Arkadie. Kevin passed away recently, and he’s one of my favorite producers. I worked with him over many, many years, and this is the last thing we got a chance to work on.

Kevin co-created a show called New York Undercover. He was one of the best writers, one of the best producers—just an amazing, amazing guy. This final season of Sacrifice will remind everyone of what a real genius he is, and I just hope everybody takes a chance to look at it… I miss Kevin every day. He’s one of the most brilliant people, one of the most decent human beings I’ve ever been around, and this will be the last work we’ll get to see from Kevin Arkadie.

‘Tis So Sweet, that’s starring Taraji P. Henson. Tasha Smith is an amazing actress, but [also] an amazing director. This woman did just such a stunning job of putting together a beautiful story, produced by DeVon Franklin and Tyler Perry… It is just a beautiful, beautiful story. It’s a true story that takes place in Chicago, and I don’t want to give any of it away. I want people to go in with an open mind and see this film. You’re going to see what I think may be the best performance that Taraji has ever done. It’s absolutely stunning.

The 78th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards will air Monday, Sept. 14 at 8:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. PT on NBC. For more on Kurt Farquhar, visit his website. Photo Credit: Irvin Rivera/Courtesy of Kurt Farquhar.

Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.