Why Kevin Costner’s Cowboy Soundtrack Has Roots in Scotland’s ‘Wild West’

There is a huge list of credits on the end of Kevin Costner’s latest film Horizon: An American Saga.
Hardly surprising, given it is three hours and one minute long and just part of a four-film vision which the Hollywood actor and director has wanted to make for almost 40 years.
Among those names is a Scottish orchestra which played a central role in the film, released in cinemas this past weekend.
The Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO) was approached by Costner last year to record the soundtrack for the film.
Composer John Debney – whose credits include Elf and The Passion of the Christ – had worked with the RSNO before.
“We had no scope for recording in LA, so I offered a few options,” he said.
“We considered London, and Nashville but when I mentioned Scotland, Kevin’s eyes lit up.”Both Debney and Costner came to the RSNO Centre last August and spent five days recording the soundtrack.
“I think it’s one of the greatest moments of the filmmaking process, to be in the scoring session,” Costner told BBC Scotland News.
“I work harder on getting the cameras and the screens into the room and let John (Debney) do the heavy lifting but I wanted the musicians to see and that was a new experience for them to see the film and meet the filmmaker and be a part of it and I think they really responded to that.
“You can be a minimalist and get back or take a bold run and match the landscape and John’s talent meant he matched the landscape.
“Music is important but it’s important to get the right guy and for Horizon, John Debney was the right guy.”Although the RSNO is known for its recording work, it is only since moving into its own purpose-built centre in the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall complex in 2015 that it has been able to develop permanent facilities.
“It was a thrill to give them a chance to play on a canvas so big,” Costner said. “All we wanted to do was make them feel a part of it because we knew the difference they were making.
“It’s a thing I want to have out there that people can find and watch and revisit and marvel at the scenery and the performances and this music which is a magic carpet of emotion that just picks you up and takes you away the moment the first stake goes in the ground.”
As lead trumpet player with the Philharmonia orchestra in London, Alistair Mackie regularly worked on soundtracks at Abbey Road.
When he became CEO of the RSNO in 2019, he saw a chance for the orchestra to pick up on the demand for recording work.
Two years ago, they launched their own studio for film, television and games soundtrack recording.
As the only orchestra in the UK with in-house facilities to record sound to picture, they have secured a range of clients including Warner Bros, Netflix, Sony, Disney and Apple TV.
But it can be months or years before the orchestra can admit involvement in projects.
“We’re doing a lot of work on movies and video games but we have to sign non-disclosure agreements so we have to respect the privacy of the clients who come here until the film is released and then we can shout about it,” Mackie said.
Projects since released include the films The Woman King and Argylle, TV show Life on Our Planet and the video games Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Star Wars Outlaw.
And, of course, Horizon: An American Saga, which earned Costner an 11-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival when it was screened there in May.“Kevin Costner was very active in the film making process,” Mackie said.
“He didn’t want to sit in the control room, he wanted to sit with the musicians in the recording studio so we found him a sofa and sent someone round to John Lewis to get the biggest possible television screen so he could watch the film while he was listening.
“He was fabulous to work with and it was great to see him there in the middle of the film-making process.”
Costner is passionate about Westerns. He directed and starred in Dances With Wolves in 1990, which won seven Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director.
He and composer John Debney had previously worked together on the American TV series Hatfields and McCoys and bonded over their mutual admiration for the 1962 film How The West Was Won.