Nathan Barr (born February 9, 1973; also known as Nate Barr) is an American film and television composer and musician. His television scores include True Blood,[1] The Americans, Carnival Row, and The Great. He won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Theme Music in 2020 for his work on the miniseries Hollywood.
Barr started studying music in Tokyo, Japan at the age of four. He studied cello and English literature at Skidmore College.
In 1996, Barr moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in composing film and television scores. One of his first jobs was working under the tutelage of Hans Zimmer on the films As Good as It Gets and The Prince of Egypt. After 8 months with Zimmer, Barr landed an agent and branched out on his own. Since then, Barr has scored a large array of feature films and TV series, including all episodes of HBO's series True Blood.
In 2009, Barr co-wrote and produced a song with Pete Townshend for FX's The Americans called "It Must Be Done" and in 2005 Barr hired Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top to play guitar on his score for The Dukes Of Hazzard.