Interview: Composer Jeff Toyne Reflects on His Emmy Win for ‘Palm Royale’

Apple TV+’s Palm Royale may feature a pair of comedic powerhouse performances from Kristen Wiig and Carol Burnett, but it is series composer Jeff Toyne who claimed the sole Emmy win for the series earlier this year. Toyne took home the prize for Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music at this year’s Primetime Creative Arts Emmys, even besting the year’s most dominant awards season series, Shōgun, in the category.

Toyne’s distinctive musical voice shines through across the entire Palm Royale score, but the main title stands out as a particularly impressive feat.

“I wanted to communicate the vibrance and wit of the show, and create a recognizable sound to mark the beginning of each episode,” explains Toyne.

A longtime friend of showrunner Abe Sylvia, Toyne arrived at the series with a wide range of scoring and production experiences. A frequent collaborator of Patrick Stump, he even did the string arrangements for Fall Out Boy’s latest album, So Much for Stardust. Toyne has also orchestrated 100+ Hollywood releases including Transformers One and District 9. Working with a 21-piece big band on Palm Royale therefore excited Toyne, who views such large-scale collaborations as the most thrilling part of his job.

“It was a very ambitious challenge to take on scoring for large ensembles on a television show, where the deadlines are relentless and the post-production schedules are very compressed,” Toyne says. “Using big band presented an extra layer of challenge, because the job of creating demo mock-ups for the filmmakers to audition and approve to picture is especially difficult with this instrumentation and style of music.”

This is where Toyne’s close relationship with Sylvia came in handy, as the duo could exchange early demos and sketches with the understanding that the final product would evolve into so much more. Sometimes, these early versions impacted the final vision for a certain sequence or scene in the series.

“My arranger mistakenly made a demo mock-up for the cue with a full orchestra, instead of one that reflected the musicians in view in the scene,” Toyne says “Abe loved the dramatic weight and import that the large orchestral version lent to the scene, and so exercised dramatic license to have more musicians heard than can be seen on stage.”

Check out our full conversation with Toyne below to hear more about his Emmy-winning work on Palm Royale.

What was your inspiration for the main title theme in Palm Royale that won an Emmy Award?

My goal with the main title was to grab the audience’s attention, and prepare them for the episode ahead – an entertaining roller coaster ride that takes place in 1960s Palm Beach society. I wanted to communicate the vibrance and wit of the show, and create a recognizable sound to mark the beginning of each episode. The visuals of the title sequence by Imaginary Forces were very inspiring, and there were a couple of places that the music interacts with them in a fun, literal way. Thematically, my main inspiration was Kristen Wiig’s character, Maxine. Work on the main title took place concurrent with scoring duties for the episodes, and so, as Maxine’s themes were developed and approved, they would find their way into the main title. (Maxine was much too big of a character to contain a single theme – there are three in the title sequence – “Maxine Striving,” “Manic Maxine,” and “Maxine Winning.” Longer versions of each can be heard elsewhere in the score and on the soundtrack album.

How did you decide on using specific instruments like the Chromatic Harmonica and Autoharp for the series?

I’ll admit that both of those instruments were inspired by Henry Mancini. Chromatic Harmonica was used in his score to Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Autoharp in Experiment in Terror. I felt that these colors could feel fresh in 2023, and connected the Palm Royale score to the time period in which the show is set. The use of big band was for the same reason – it’s an uncommon choice in contemporary film and television scoring, but it made perfect sense in the 1960s. The harmonica resonated with me as the instrument for the love theme for Douglas (played by Josh Lucas) – despite his affluent upbringing he has a ‘common man’ quality that the harmonica also has, as a pocket instrument that anyone can afford and easily learn to play. The autoharp helped add that “do or die sparkle” to Maxine’s striving theme (alongside piano, harp, and vibraphone.) Most characters’ themes also included instrument choices as well, this gave more options to reference them in scenes, through their leitmotifs or their instrument.

Can you describe the process of working with a 21-piece big band and a large orchestra to achieve the show’s sound?

Working with live musicians is the most thrilling part of my job, but it was a very ambitious challenge to take on scoring for large ensembles on a television show, where the deadlines are relentless and the post-production schedules are very compressed. Using big band presented an extra layer of challenge, because the job of creating demo mock-ups for the filmmakers to audition and approve to picture is especially difficult with this instrumentation and style of music. People are used to hearing demos that are very close to the final, but big band jazz only really comes to life when the musicians play it in the studio. I had a terrific team that worked very hard, and I had a real asset in my long-time friend and collaborator, showrunner Abe Sylvia, who was able to judge a demo as a sketch and know that the final recording would be so much “more.”

How does the show’s setting in 1960s Palm Beach influence the musical themes you developed?


Abe wanted to approach the score of Palm Royale as if we were making the show in 1969. To me that meant a very melodic score, with strong themes and bright acoustic orchestral colors. We also acknowledged the geographical setting by incorporating a Latin influence, which just so happened to also be very popular in the music of the ’60s as well. As I often do, I took a deep dive into the source material and had a great time in the repertoire of composers like Henry Mancini, Bernard Herrmann, and everyone in between.


How did you create a soundtrack that balances the show’s varying genres; such as comedy and drama?



As hilarious as some scenes are (Kristin Wiig! Carol Burnett!), we never wanted to have a “winking, pizzicato score” as Abe put it. Instead of putting a “hat on a hat,” we found it much more effective to stay with the point of view of the characters, for whom the stakes were always high and the situations they found themselves in, as outrageous as they may be to the audience – to them, it felt like life and death. In my opinion there were definitely scenes that, the more the music leaned into the drama, the funnier they felt.

What was your approach to developing key themes for the different characters in the series?



Each character presented their own unique challenge. For Ricky Martin’s Robert, it was easy to decide the instrument (trumpet, he plays onscreen a few times), but his own character theme doesn’t get played for a while, since he’s usually playing well known tunes on his trumpet. For the Dellacorte family of Maxine, Douglas, and Norma (played by Carol Burnett), I decided to connect them by using a family of instruments – reeds: Piccolo Eb Clarinet for Maxine, Contrabass Clarinet for Norma and the aforementioned Harmonica for Douglas. The Eb Clarinet is bright and playful, and plays the highest register in the clarinet family; speaking to Maxine’s high aspirations and high-spirited nature. On the other end of the spectrum, the Contrabass Clarinet plays the lowest notes in the clarinet family, with a dark and sinister tone; speaking to Norma’s slowly revealed treacherous intentions. But they both are related by the way they make sound. For the themes themselves I tried to tap into the inner desires of the characters and find melodies and harmonies that we could use to express them. Maxine’s melody is always rising in pitch, always striving. Douglas’s theme became something of a love theme of sorts. Norma’s theme definitely delves into noir territory.

Can you describe a moment when the music transformed a scene in an unexpected way?



The last scene of episode 1 “Pilot” takes place in the Palm Royale club ballroom, where all the members are waltzing to a band onstage of 6 or 7 players. I wrote a waltz for the scene, which contained Evelyn’s theme, for which I took inspiration from Lehar’s “Merry Widow,” since to my mind all the ladies of Palm Royale were widows in one way or another. My arranger mistakenly made a demo mock-up for the cue with a full orchestra, instead of one that reflected the musicians in view in the scene. Abe loved the dramatic weight and import that the large orchestral version lent to the scene, and so exercised dramatic license to have more musicians heard than can be seen on stage. The music in that scene lives right on the line between diegetic (heard by the characters) and non-diegetic (purely for the benefit of the audience.)

If you could have any legendary 1960s musician perform a cameo on the Palm Royale soundtrack, who would it be and why?

Herb Alpert. He was making great, influential music in the ’60s and he is still making great music today, so who knows? Maybe he will see this article and decide to drop in on a session!