Mary Oliver Saved by the Beauty of the World airs nationally tonight on PBS

After a wildly successful (top 2 or 3 grossing docs in 2026) theatrical run (and still in many theaters) Mary Oliver… will air nationally tonight, Aug 25th on PBS American Masters. It’s been quite incredible, and yet not surprising, seeing how moved people are by this film. Mary’s life and words are absolutely what people need right now. The original motion picture score is available if you’d like to listen or purchase, at Bandcamp here.



We’ll leave you with one of our favorite Mary Oliver Poems:

“I Worried”

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.

Secret Mall Apartment Acquired by Netflix!

After a long glorious run in almost every format, festivals, theatrical, VOD, Netflix just bought Secret Mall Apartment- So now MANY MANY more people can see this incredible film, and that makes us happy. The more, the merrier. Congrats to the team!

Great Balls Of Fire!! "Bad Hostage was shortlisted for an Oscar!

You can hear the main theme from Bad Hostage below.

Bad Hostage_intro
Olivier Manchon and Clare Manchon

An incredibly thought provoking, and Kirsten Johnson even calls it paradigm shifting, film we scored has been shortlisted for an Oscar. Bad Hostage a very long short, at 39 min, which is a hard sell, but director Mimi Wilcox was right to stick to her guns, that was the amount of time she needed to tell this intricately woven story. It’s won several film festivals this year. It’s a takedown and a light shone upon the misogyny surrounding what we all call Stockholm Syndrome. We are so proud of this dark, brooding, very bold score. It was beautiful to work with Mimi and Max Asaf (producer) and we were frequently pleasantly surprised with their lack of fear at having really robust cinematic pieces of music scored to their film. Congrats to the team! We are lucky. I (Clare) was also thrilled to be an associate producer on this film.

Film about Mierle Laderman Ukeles gets Tribeca 2025 Premiere!

When we saw the rough cut of “Maintenance Artist”, we knew we were lucky to be scoring this film. Mierle Laderman Ukeles is both one of the most influential feminist performance artists to come out of the 60s, and also one of the most profoundly important, lesser known by the masses artists to come out the last 5 decades. She conducts ballets with tractors and snowplows, choreographs dances with barges and garbage trucks and shakes the hands of 8500 sanitation workers, acting as a peace maker, not to mention makes giant public parks out of landfills. She’s deeply poetic and made us think about all her philosophical questions as we worked. Working with the whole team on this film was inspiring and so engaging, reminding us, why do things ever need to be chaotic, negative or dramatic, it doesn’t make a better film, or a better score. Trust is key, on both ends. This is one of those films we feel so damn inspired by. Tickets on sale now for Tribeca premiere. We’ll be at the June 8th screening. For more info click here.

"Her/Mine" Directed by Alexandra Shiva premieres at San Fransisco Film Festival

Scoring this beautifully personal and intimate film was such a fulfilling experience. Alexandra’s mom, who passed away when Alexandra was a child, was an accomplished folk singer of global styles and it was a treat to weave her actual recordings into the score, quote the songs with orchestrations and honor her mothers legacy and talent, her humanity and truly insatiable quest to study music and song traditions from all over the world. The film weaves the families fascinating history with modern day perspectives and the family lineage is deep and complex. It premiered at the SF Film Festival in April 2025.

Jesse Eisenberg produced “Secret Mall Apartment” comes to theaters!

A film we scored, and love so much, is coming out in theatres March 21st! Brilliantly directed by Jeremy Workman, and produced by Jesse Eisenberg, it’s a film you must see, because it’s truly impossible to describe. It’s bonkers fun, deeply moving and incredibly thought provoking all at once. Here’s another thing, it’s GREAT for kids! So for once, you don’t have to move mountains, or get a sitter to go to the movies. Our kids, ages 8 and 10, LOVED it. To check where it’s playing, visit here. This film won 9 film festivals in 2024, it’s singular, and stays with you, which is what all good art should be.

Here is the trailer:

John Legend productions out 8/30

What a thrill it was for us to produce and arrange three songs on John Legend’s new record “My Favorite Dream”. Sufjan’s productions are jaw droppingly beautiful, expansive, rich and fun Olivier played strings on Sufjan’s productions. We were so honored he recommended us to produce “Maybe”, “Great Great Day” and “Friendship” - We made lush, orchestral, big ol’ productions and John was as open hearted as he was open minded to work with. As always, we worked with incredible musicians, and even our own kids, Gustave and Ernestine, added vocals to the songs. Here is a lyric video to “Maybe”

2 Films We Scored Are Emmy Nominated!

Very happy to see the wonderful filmmakers we work with honored and 2 films we recently scored have been nominated for an Emmy. Jeremy Workman and Rob Lyons directed “Decided Vote” and Yael Melamede directed “Speaking Freely”.

We’ll be talking about our scoring process May 5th

Olivier and I will be taking part in a night of film music May 5th at our beloved arthouse cinema, Upstate Films. We definitely do things in unconventional ways, so it’ll be both fun and scary to dive into talking about that. We’ll show clips from scenes and talk about getting from a blank slate, or a misleading temp, to hopefully a scene-enhancing place. Tickets are available here and it’s hosted by the Hudson Valley Filmmakers.

Music for a play! Our first-

The brilliant director of Turn Every Page, Lizzie Gottlieb, is directing 4000 Miles for the Berkshire Theatre Festival in May 2024 and we wrote the music for it.

This play is extraordinary and you can get tickets here.

Starring the amazing Maria Tucci

Secret Mall Apartment World Premiere at SXSW Film Fest

A film we are just finishing up, “Secret Mall Apartment” will have it’s world premiere at SXSW Film Fest in March. We’ll be there too! We loved this film since the first rough cut we saw of it, and can’t wait for people to see it. It’s directed by Jeremy Workman and executive-produced by Jesse Eisenberg. Read about it here…

Clare & the Reasons to open for Rufus Wainwright

Our ol’ band is coming out of retirement once more to play at the Egg in Albany. It looks EXACTLY like an Egg, and we’re excited because we will be opening for the inimitable, magical, singular, Rufus Wainwright. It’ll be Me (Clare) singing with just a string quartet, Olivier on violin, of course. Get your tickets early, because it’ll surely sell out. Sunday, April 7th. 8:00PM

The New Yorker Releases "Deciding Vote" today!

The perfect home has been found for “Deciding Vote” and it comes out today! Congratulations to the whole crew, especially directors Jeremy Workman and Rob Lyons. We were very inspired while working on this score. It’s also extra cool that Laura Linney is presenting it.

"Deciding Vote" Wins Top Prize at Woodstock Film Festival

A wonderful short we scored called “Deciding Vote” won at one of our favorite festivals, just 15 minutes from where we live, the Woodstock Film Festival. It won best short doc and it’s competition was incredible. Such moving and important films being made. The whole weekend just left us both so reenergized and amazed at the medium of doc film making, and the power it can have.

Clare and Olivier with co director Rob Lyons

"Speaking Freely" on PBS nationwide Sept 22nd

We’ve been so busy, haven’t updated this wee site in ages! A thorough and thoughtful look at the first amendment and all of it’s complexities is captured in a new film we scored, “Speaking Freely”. We loved working with director Yael Melamede and are sure you’ll find this film interesting, informative, and quite frankly, fun to watch. It is airing nationwide on PBS as a part of the American Masters series, Friday, Sept 22nd. We saw it at the premiere at Moma the other night, and we are so happy with how the score turned out and flows through the film.

Clare and Olivier at the Premiere of “Speaking Freely” 9/12/23

We are playing live! July 15th

We are playing live, July 15th at Opus40, in Saugerties NY. You can get tickets here

This is a reunion of our band, Clare & the Reasons, it’s been 10 years, yes, 10… Olivier will open the evening with French cinema music. This is a pretty emotional thing, to dig back into this music, it was such a huge part of our lives, and then things shifted, but it feels magical and healing to dive back in, actually.

Clare & the Reasons plus an opening set to celebrate Bastille Day: musique pour le cinéma Français by Olivier Manchon

5PM Gates / 6PM Show / $15 adv / $20 gate / All Ages

Food by Corners / Drinks by Stockade Tavern

Clare & the Reasons is the faded, but not forgotten project of Clare and Olivier Manchon. They made 3 studio albums and toured around much of the world. Paste Magazine said “It’s music that’s meant to be felt, not just heard.” The Guardian wrote “a sassy blast of symphonic jazz-noir.” The Times of London exclaimed “symphonic pop so swoonsome that the authorities could slap a health warning on it.” NPR radioed “...vintage pop and music-hall McCartneyisms.” The New York Times scribed "orchestral luxury and nuance." Butwhy did Clare & the Reasons fade? Because of the ampersand. Clare never wanted the ampersand, but try telling that to a world who loves them. So, after nearly 10 years of mediation, healing and deciding that ampersands are aok, Clare & the Reasons are reuniting for the first time at Opus 40 July 15th 2023.

French born violinist and multi instrumentalist, Olivier Manchon lives in Kingston NY. He has played with so many folks, such as Van Dyke Parks, My Brightest Diamond, DeVotchKa, Sufjan Stevens, The New Pornographers, Stephane Wrembel, Lionel Loueke, more too, but that’s enough. Olivier mainly does film scoring with his bride Clare Manchon now. He also does a good amount of arranging. He has a deep and saturated knowledge of French film music and will perform some of his favorites at Opus 40. He will then co lead the reunion show of Clare & the Reasons.