Music of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

The music of the American fantasy television series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is composed by Bear McCreary, with additional music by Howard Shore and other artists. The Amazon Prime Video series is based on J. R. R. Tolkien's history of Middle-earth, primarily material from the appendices of the novel The Lord of the Rings, and is set thousands of years before the novel in the Second Age of Middle-earth. It covers all the major events of the Second Age from Tolkien's writings.

McCreary was first approached about composing the series' original score in 2019, and began writing themes or leitmotifs in July 2021. The series is not a continuation of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies and McCreary was contractually prevented from quoting any of the themes that Shore composed for those films, but he hoped to create musical continuity between his score and Shore's. After six weeks composing new themes, McCreary began writing the score for each episode and ultimately composed nine hours of music over eight months. He eschewed the common industry approach of using other composers to write additional music to ensure a consistent musical approach for the whole series. Recording began in November 2021 while McCreary was still composing. The score was recorded with orchestras at Abbey Road Studios and AIR Studios in London and a choir at Synchron Stage in Vienna. The choral music was sung in Tolkien's fictional languages. Soloists were recorded around the world playing various specialty instruments. Recording for the first season was completed in April 2022. Independent of McCreary's work, Shore composed the series' main title theme.

A soundtrack album for the first season was released on August 19, 2022, and was followed by additional albums featuring McCreary's full score for each episode. The score has received positive reviews from critics and several accolades, including a Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Award nomination for Shore's main title theme.