When you watch Andromeda every week, it's sometimes hard to believe you're seeing movie-quality special effects for free right in your own living room. Equally as stunning, but far too often taken for granted, is the spectacular music that accompanies each exciting episode. AndromedaTV.com Producer Jeremy Horowitz recently visited Andromeda Composer Matthew McCauley at his recording studio. Below is the conclusion of their discussion.

Jeremy Horowitz: I'm not sure what you call it, but colloquially, out on the Internet, the music from the very end of the Season Four finale is known as the "Arkology Theme." Do you know the one I mean?

Matthew McCauley: I sure do.

Jeremy: It's so popular that one fan took it upon himself to actually transcribe it...(hands Matthew the sheet music)

Matthew: (laughing and smiling) That's amazing! How about that...that's wonderful.

Jeremy: A lot of people are curious whether the Arkology theme is completely original or whether it is some other piece of music?

Matthew: No, it's completely original, and I'm really happy with the response to it, because it was a bold suggestion by the producers to approach it from such a grand perspective. The result is gratifying; it is intended to evoke the feeling of a requiem, it has quasi-classical, neo-romantic, it has a number of different elements to it. There are a lot of people who thought that it is actually Mozart's Requiem.

Jeremy: There was a lot of speculation about that.

Matthew: It's more modern than that, but its goal is to evoke that kind of feeling, of a noble lineage.

Jeremy: Are the lyrics on that English, Latin or some other language?

Matthew: No, it's entirely made up. It's just vowel sounds that were assembled to sound word-like, to give a feeling as if there was a message being conveyed, but it's entirely fabricated.

Jeremy: Did you have a singer come in, or was that sampled digitally as well?

Matthew: Yes, a singer named Margie Fester came in for that.

Jeremy: How long did it take to record her vocals?

Matthew: About an hour. Doing the vocal was very fast; she was excellent.

Jeremy: Had she taken time before that to prepare and learn the piece?

Matthew: Yes, I sent her a track to listen to. She was terrific. I think it took roughly a day to put the whole piece together.

Jeremy: What kind of movie and TV music do you most enjoy, and most admire?

Matthew: There is a range of things that I like. I think there is no one who has the degree of detail sensitivity, orchestration skill and thematic finesse that John Williams does. He's a tremendous talent, and I'm not introducing any new ideas here by saying any of this, I just have great respect for his work. There are others in different domains; Thomas Newman's work I very much enjoy. I like Jon Brion, who is very particular in his style, but takes some very courageous approaches to music for film, and at times those are fantastically successful -- though there have been moments when I get the feeling he misses -- I like the courage and intention he brings to his music.

Jeremy: What is something by Jon Brion that the Andromeda audience may have heard of?

Matthew: He did "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "Magnolia."

Jeremy: What other movie and TV projects have you done?

Matthew: During Andromeda, I did the music for a documentary that won an Emmy award for the music, which was called "Squeakers." I also arrange for Alan Jackson, the country artist, so I've done the arrangements on several of his albums during the time that Andromeda has been on the air. Earlier in my career I spent a number of years as a record producer, so I was doing a lot of pop acts at that time, but just going back chronologically, before Andromeda, I was working on an episodic animation show called Rainbow Fish, and prior to that, I did The Adventures of Sinbad for its two seasons. It was a short-lived series, but a lot of fun.

Jeremy: Do you have anything else that you'd like to tell the fans, the audience, about composing or anything about your experience with Andromeda?

Matthew: Well, in general -- and I've said this to the producers repeatedly -- Andromeda has been, without question, the best television music experience I've had. The relationship between the production entities -- Bob Engels, the producer now, Allan Eastman prior to that, Robert Wolfe, I've just found that the fluency of communication has been top-notch. We've had virtually trouble-free execution of the music and mixes, and agreement on the intention, and so on. It's been a very happy experience. I'm sorry to see it end; I wish it would go on. I know there are many on the production who feel that way, who wish it would just continue.

Jeremy: There are lots of fans who would like it to continue, too. There's a "Save Andromeda" campaign afoot on the Internet.

Matthew: Is that so?

Jeremy: We've gotten a lot of e-mails about it so far. There's a good contingent out there that cares about Andromeda. But five years is a long time for any show.

Matthew: I think that nobility has a lot to do with it. I think the deep central character that Dylan represents is an important thing that we all relate to. Even though I've been doing this for a while, and I see the show constantly, when we have a moment where Dylan's talking about something, and there's a truth and certain righteousness about his approach, it's really inspiring. You really feel the good, human intention there; it's undeniable.

Jeremy: This is completely unrelated to Andromeda, but I happened to come across this information in searching the Internet: I noticed you're a founder of Ancient Egypt Research Associates.

Matthew: That's correct.

Jeremy: Tell me how you got into that, and what you do involving Egyptology.

Matthew: It's been a long and interesting project. I've been involved for 30 years now. We have excavated at Giza, the site of the Great Pyramid, we've excavated the Great Sphinx, we've radio carbon-dated the Great Pyramid, we're excavating the lost city of the pyramids, as it's called, which is near the third pyramid at Giza, and we have a very large-scale operation there. We have about 100 people in the field. It's a non-profit research group, led by Dr. Mark Lehner, who is considered one of the eminent Egyptologists of our time. Thirty years ago, I set out on a quest to discover the mystical history of Egypt, but it developed fairly rapidly into a scientifically rigorous research group. In the beginning, Dr. Lehner was just an anthropology student; he then went on to get his doctorate from Yale in Egyptology. It's a serious pursuit, but one with lots of wonderful, attendant mystery to it, too. Every year we find and learn new things.

Jeremy: How many times a year do you go to Egypt?

Matthew: It varies. There are projects afoot this coming season that might take me there several times, but there have been years that I didn't go. I think I've been there a total of maybe 18 times now.

Jeremy: Any Indiana Jones-style experiences?

Matthew: Yeah. We had one experience where we were given permission to go into a tomb that had been closed. This was underground; we wanted to photograph a sarcophagus. We had to climb down a very narrow passageway, and it was filled with dust, which was basically just dried bat dung. When we got down to the bottom, our small group gathered, and used flashlights to illuminate the sarcophagus for the photographs. All of a sudden, we heard this sound. We looked up and saw the ceiling was completely black -- covered in bats from one end to the other. There was a moment of panic when we all realized that we're down there and these bats are starting to stir. So we quickly got the shots we wanted and began to leave, but at that moment the bats had been fully awakened, so the bats began their exodus through the passageway as well. So the three or four of us are climbing up this passageway as fast as we can to exit the tomb, while bats are flying past us and landing on our heads and on our backs. It was very hair-raising, because we were already in a quasi-sacred, mystical place, and we were then confronted with this wild rush of bats. That definitely had the flavor of Indiana Jones.

Jeremy: Have you ever had any trouble with the Egyptian government? Are the things you find there automatically the property of the Egyptian government?

Matthew: First of all, we have an extremely good relationship with the Egyptian government. There's an absolute prohibition on artifacts being taken out of the country, or artifacts being sidelined in any way. Everything is done with inspectors on site, and it's all very much an above-board effort. When anything is found, it becomes the property of the Egyptian government. Our interest is to further the academic and scholarly work, and to learn more about the origins of the culture. We greatly appreciate that the Egyptian government has allowed us to work with them for over three decades. A great deal of important research has been accomplished as a result.

Jeremy: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk about your Andromeda and Egypt experiences!