![playing the violin]()
With only about two weeks left until the premiere of
Star Wars' latest Disney+ spin-off series The Acolyte, we have ourselves a truly unique bit of promotional material that reveals how strong the real-life Force is with Amandla Stenberg. Not only is she a rising, shooting star of an actor, but she's also a hell of a musician.
Granted, this is the only time I've heard her play the violin. If you've commanded enough respect from legendary composer John Williams to the point where he'll create a
custom arrangement of Star Wars' score just for you, on your instrument of choice, it's safe to say you probably have some chops. Stenberg struts her stuff on the strings in the video below, with an excellent rendition of "Binary Sunset", aka "The Force Theme" that first accompanied Luke Skywalker gazing upon the Tatooine horizon in the original 1977 blockbuster.
https://twitter.com/OfficialAcolyte/status/1792616279603634515
Mind you, rumors were swirling that John Williams would retire after completing his score for
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. The 91-year-old GOAT of film composing
shot that notion down like Chewie with a bowcaster earlier this year. Clearly, Williams still has that passion to make music, and who knows? Maybe he'll continue to do so in a galaxy far, far away. He hasn't limited himself to the nine-movie Skywalker saga, creating even more instantly iconic main themes for
Solo: A Star Wars Story and the
Obi-Wan Kenobi show.
It goes without saying that Williams is a genius beyond reproach. For as polarizing and widely disliked as
The Rise of Skywalker was, he still earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score. The man knows how to call back to his leitmotifs at the most perfect of times. In honor of
The Phantom Menace's 25th anniversary and theatrical re-release, I felt compelled to highlight this particular detail from one of the less-heralded films in the franchise:
https://twitter.com/sw_holocron/status/1206292443773243395
My question about this latest epic, standalone composition for Stenberg is: Will she be on
The Acolyte soundtrack? It kind of feels like this fun segment could be foreshadowing her cameo on the show's accompanying music. Since the plot revolves around a Dark Side Force user who's killing Jedi, I could see one of the episodes ending on a downer cliffhanger, followed by credits with Stenberg's mournful violin as the backing track.
Whatever the case, it's always cool to see how multifaceted any given creative artist is. Get you a lead who can contribute to the score if you can, right? Well done, Amandla.
The Acolyte will drop two of its eight episodes during its June 4 premiere. It's set about
a century before the events of The Phantom Menace, so for that reason alone, I'm very intrigued indeed.
![Count Dooku]()
