Composer Meiro Stamm on Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum

Meet composer Meiro Stamm. In this interview, we discuss Meiro’s entrance into the composing world, his experiences working on Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum, and more.

What has your musical journey been like that led you to compose for so many different kinds of projects?

I started out playing guitar when I was ten. Just casually at first, but once I heard Jimi Hendrix, I got serious about the instrument and about music in general. I was very musically curious so I started to study and explore many genres of music from around the world.

My mother was really supportive and happy to get me as many lessons and instruments as we could afford. I was also really fortunate that my hometown of Toronto was, and continues to be, very diverse, so it’s easy to hear and study music from many countries.

After a few years, I realized that being a composer rather than a musician was my calling. I wrote and recorded an album that mixed Western classical orchestral music with elements of Indian, Indonesian, and rock music. It was the calling card that helped me land my first scoring job. Having wide musical knowledge enabled me to compose for a variety of projects. I love the storytelling aspect of media composing, so this has really turned out to be the perfect career for me.

What is it like composing for animated kid's shows like Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum? What does the creative process look like for you, and how does it compare to composing for audiences of more mature content?

Animated children’s shows are generally in 11-minute segments, and the music and audio post are done within about a week or ten days. There will usually be a music spotting session for the first few episodes, but once the musical direction is set, the spotting is left up to the composer and music editor. On Xavier, I worked with Ryan Eligh, who I’ve known for years and is a fantastic music editor.

We’ve done a lot of projects together, so we have an established workflow. When an episode comes in, we both watch it and make some rough notes about which scenes can be edited and which ones need new music. There are certain stock sequences in Xavier that have signature cues, such as the museum run, the time travel moments, and the opening and closing.

Ryan will edit those, plus anything that can use a fairly generic cue, such as the characters walking and talking. He then sends me his edit, and I’ll write new cues around it. The music is then delivered, and a premix of the episode goes to the creative team for review. We’ll address any changes as we start the next episode, but they are usually just minor tweaks that can be done very quickly.

The main difference between composing for an animated series like Xavier and an adult drama or romance is pacing. You really have to get to the point quickly in the story and in the music as well. There isn’t time to linger or slowly develop themes, which means that composing short, recognizable motifs is key.

The other thing is that animation thrives on exaggeration. Taking the score over the top is, in most cases, a desirable thing and, in fact, one of the best ways to bring out the humor in a scene. Generally, that means that there are a lot of notes per second to be composed and produced for an 11-minute show, whereas in a 90-minute movie of the week, the music can be much sparser and simpler to be effective.

The workload in TV animation is much higher than most people realize, not just for the composer but all departments. I don’t think we’re really given credit for the quality we’re able to produce in a very short amount of time and with budgets that are significantly more modest than for a prime-time drama.

Can you walk us a bit through the elements of the score on Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum and how they supported the show’s narrative?

The creative team on Xavier wanted an orchestral score along the lines of what John Williams did for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, and so forth. That was great for me because I grew up on those movies. In fact, the first album I ever bought was the Star Wars soundtrack in the summer of 1977.

The idea was to treat each 11-minute episode as a mini-feature film with musical themes that would carry through and develop rather than have a bunch of short, cartoony stingers. Our characters meet real historical figures, so the stories often deal with difficult subjects such as racial and gender discrimination and sometimes real danger.

Since Xavier is a pre-school show, of course, everything is age-appropriate, so Cory Bobiak, the show’s director, really wanted me to play the emotion seriously while never taking things to too dark of a place. Each story is an adventure, so there is also a big element of fun in the score as well. The challenge was to have the score be epic, emotional, and fun but stay thematic and flowing rather than choppy with lots of stylistic jumps.

My musical starting point for the score was actually a couple of cues from The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders Of The Lost Ark, in which I noticed, even as a kid, that Williams wrote surprisingly light music for some of the action scenes. The asteroid field from Empire and the chase to the floatplane in Raiders are great examples. In both cases, the heroes are in danger, and yet there’s an overall sense of fun and adventure to the scenes rather than dread.

The first cue I wrote for Xavier was the museum run when Xavier, Brad, and Yadina go from the regular museum to the secret museum. It’s exciting and fun because they’re going on an adventure, but there’s a thread of tension too because they can’t be seen by any museum patrons or staff as they make their way to the secret passage. Once I had nailed down that theme, it set the tone and became the basis of the entire score.

You were a nominee for a Canadian Screen Award for Best Original Music, Animation. What is that nomination process like?

The Canadian Screen Awards are special because nominations are determined by peer voting in each category. In the case of music, that is, of course, composers but also music editors, music supervisors, and sound supervisors. It’s a great feeling to have one’s work recognized by collaborators but also by competitors. I think we have a unique situation with Canadian composers in that there’s a tremendous sense of camaraderie.

We help each other on a daily basis by co-writing, providing tech support, discussing industry practices, and even moral support. This past week when the animation music awards were presented, I was sitting in a pub with three fellow nominees. Due to COVID, the awards were online so we made our own celebration. It was a ton of fun as we cheered each other on with a pint in one hand and our phones in the other, watching the awards.

Any insight or advice for anyone wanting to be a TV and film composer?

I think the most important thing to understand is that composing for TV and film means that the story and not the music is the focus. Every time you sit down to write, the question is not “what’s the best music I can write?” but “how can my music best support the story?”.

Sometimes that means composing something very simple or making changes to a cue that you really like. It sounds obvious, but I encounter so many beginning composers who think they can write a piece of music and that it’ll somehow just fit into a scene. That rarely happens. The other complaint is, “I worked really hard on this, and now the director wants me to change it.” Yeah, well, that’s the job.

You also need to be really organized as a media composer. It’s a weird combination of left and right brain thinking that’s required. You need to keep your files organized, computer and equipment well-maintained and reliable, and also be instantly creative and quickly come up with musical ideas.

And you need to be able to do all this consistently for long stretches without a break. For example, the first season of Xavier was 38 half-hours produced over 22 months. Episodes move quickly, but overall, it’s a marathon rather than a sprint, so knowing how to pace yourself is key.

Lastly, I would say simply be nice and supportive to those around you. It costs nothing, and people will like working with you. Nobody wants to be stuck with a jerk on a project that lasts two years.

Recent Awards and Recognition

Meiro Stamm’s profile has grown steadily since the original Canadian Screen Award nomination. He earned Best Original Score at the 2024 New York Animation Film Awards for Fiego and the Magic Fish, a win that highlighted his ability to balance emotional depth with concise cues in short-form animation.

The same project brought a 2024 Canadian Screen Music Award nomination for Best Original Score, keeping him in regular conversation with peers across the Canadian industry. In 2026 he received another Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Original Music, Animation for the Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum episode “I Am William Shakespeare,” extending the recognition that began with the first season.

Recent Collaborations and Projects

Stamm teamed with composer Antonio Naranjo on the 2024 animated feature Glisten and the Merry Mission, splitting duties on a score that mixed orchestral color with lighter seasonal textures. He also scored the award-winning short Fiego and the Magic Fish, a project that moved quickly from spotting sessions to final mix while maintaining the thematic clarity he favors on longer series.

These assignments sit alongside continued work in television animation, where he has now scored more than eighty film, TV, stage, and digital productions overall. The pattern shows a composer comfortable moving between high-volume episodic deadlines and the tighter narrative demands of features and shorts.

Rhymington Square Outcome and Reception

The jazz-driven series Rhymington Square, mentioned in earlier coverage as a 2023 launch, ultimately rolled out between August 2023 and October 2024 on the Super Simple Songs YouTube channel. Each episode paired comical poetry with a small-ensemble jazz score that gave Stamm room to stretch melodic lines beyond the quick motifs typical of preschool animation.

The finished run confirmed the appeal of that hybrid approach, and the separate music-video version of the theme song reached audiences outside the series itself. The project now sits as a completed chapter rather than an anticipated one.

Evolution of Animation Scoring Workflows

Post-pandemic production calendars and streaming delivery windows have kept television animation on compressed schedules, yet Stamm continues to balance those timelines with selective feature and short-form work. The established spotting and editing workflow developed on Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum remains central, now supplemented by remote review sessions that became standard during the shift to hybrid pipelines.

High episode counts still require rapid motif writing and quick revisions, but the addition of occasional prestige or festival projects allows for slightly longer development windows on select cues. The result is a steadier rhythm of work that accommodates both the marathon pace of series television and the focused demands of awards-contending shorts and features.

Any exciting upcoming projects?

The projects once listed as upcoming have now been completed. Rhymington Square finished its run in late 2024 after its staggered YouTube release. Fiego and the Magic Fish secured its New York Animation Film Award and Canadian Screen Music Award nomination, while Glisten and the Merry Mission reached theaters and streaming in 2024 with a co-composed score. Nominations for Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum continue into 2026, keeping the series in active awards consideration.