‘Wicked’ Music Producer Greg Wells on Going Big With the Soundtrack — and Hearing Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo’s Voices Merge Into One in Real Time

variety.com:

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Although most of Greg Wells‘ professional life has involved producing or writing for big pop artists (including Adele, Katy Perry, OneRepublic & Timbaland, Twenty One Pilots and John Legend), he’s dedicated more of his time in recent years to working on films.

Two and a half years, specifically (so far), as the music producer on both parts of “Wicked” — a job he describes as “Herculean” with very good quantitative as well as qualitative reason.

It follows up his work as producer on the Grammy-winning No. 1 soundtrack for another full-on movie musical, “The Greatest Showman.” His classical and jazz training are coming in handy as he makes his name doing soundtracks that involve heavy orchestration as well as the ability to properly frame today’s top pop divas.

In this Variety Q&A, Wells goes into detail about why this project personally packs an emotional punch for him, his friendship of nearly 35 years with composer Stephen Schwartz, the back-and-forth processes that took two and a half years just for Part 1 of “Wicked,” and working with the leading ladies.