The Music
The Oscar-nominated Osage Tribal Singers join Stevie Salas — the legendary guitarist from Parliament/Funkadelic, now with Mick Jagger — alongside classical composer Mario Grigorov and cellist Heike Schuch of the Salzburg Philharmonic to create an extraordinary score that combines traditional Osage singing and drumming mixed with killer metal rock over a classical underscore.
Together they create something that resists the conventions of the form — textural grit that puts you inside the world of the invaders carrying out their crimes, balanced against the hope and joy that has always defined the Osage people's refusal to disappear.
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Traditional Songs
The Osage Tribal Singers
Scott George is a singer, drummer, and composer of the Osage Nation, raised in Hominy, Oklahoma — the heart of Osage country. He has sung in I'n-Lon-Schka drum committees since 1983.
When Martin Scorsese attended the Osage Nation's annual I'n-Lon-Schka dances in 2021, they knew they had found the sound that would close Killers of the Flower Moon. George composed “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” for the film's finale — earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song, and becoming the first Osage and the first Indigenous person ever nominated in that category.
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Guitar
Stevie Salas
Stevie Salas — guitarist, writer, producer, and composer — has recorded on over 70 albums with artists as diverse as George Clinton, Justin Timberlake, Buddy Miles, T.I., Mick Jagger, and Rod Stewart. Having sold over two million solo albums worldwide, he has been cited as one of the top 50 guitarists of all time.
A Native American, Salas has long championed Indigenous communities, including serving as Advisor of Contemporary Music at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. He received the Native American Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009, and his documentary Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World won the Special Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival.
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Original Compositions
Mario Grigorov
Mario Grigorov is a Bulgarian-born composer and concert pianist whose musical life began at age five, when the Sofia Conservatorium waived its minimum-age requirement to admit him. He studied classical piano through Tehran, Berlin, and Vienna before landing in Sydney, where he absorbed jazz and electronic music — and then in Los Angeles, where a Warner Bros. A&R executive heard him improvising in a music store and signed him on the spot.
His scores range from the raw intimacy of Lee Daniels' Precious to the Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side, and he co-wrote an original song with J.K. Rowling for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. His earlier collaboration with David Ambrose on Vigilantes Inc. made Long Knife a natural continuation.
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Cello
Heike Schuch
Heike Schuch is a German cellist, singer, and actor. Admitted to the Cologne University of Music at sixteen, she went on to study at the Mozarteum Salzburg under masters of the European cello tradition, winning prizes at the International Johannes Brahms Competition and earning the City of Salzburg Promotion Prize at the Salzburg Festival.
She has toured the world with the renowned quartet Salut Salon, shared stages with artists from Roland Kaiser to Kanye West, and pushed her cello into ambitious crossover territory through her solo project Charlie Cello — in which she performs as cellist, singer, pianist, guitarist, and drummer all at once.
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Music Supervisor
Margaret Saadi Kramer
Margaret Saadi Kramer is known as a warrior on behalf of her artists — award-winning composers, Rock and Roll Hall of Famers, Grammy-nominated songwriters, and emerging talents alike. She has steered the music for full-length documentaries (The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers), feature films (Bolívar), and long-running series (Eastbound & Down) in a range of production roles.
With legendary singer-songwriters Wayne Kramer and Billy Bragg, she co-founded Jail Guitar Doors USA, a Los Angeles–based 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a mission to help rehabilitate people in prison.