Ari Picker and Emma Nadeau of the Triangle-area band Lost in the Trees are now performing their live score for PlayMakers Repertory Company’s renditions of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses.

The musicians that comprise this monolithic band are well-versed in the classical music world. Examples of the band’s breaks from the contemporary include when it ventured into full orchestration with “Project Symphony” in 2008 or its intricately crafted works of baroque folk glory.

This style stems from the inf luence of film scores on Picker, the original songwrit er for the band. He received a bachelor’s degree in film scor ing from the Berklee College of Music.

“Danny Elfman’s Edward Scissor Hands was my first score,” Picker said. “It made a huge impact on my arrange ments and songwriting.”

Until recently, Picker was the sole composer in the outfit. But for its forthcom ing album, Past Life, Nadeau began to contribute as well. Nadeau has only worked with “a couple of different small theater productions” and said that her work with Picker on the PlayMakers productions is the most collaborative work they’ve done.

“For me, I find perform ing these live scores surpris ingly similar to performing live with the band,” Nadeau said. “Maybe because I find myself in a supporting role in both situations. [But] I have really enjoyed the chal lenge of creating pieces that are malleable and the finesse that is involved in fitting the same piece of music to a live show that changes slightly every night.”

Picker said he enjoys play ing the background role as well.

“I really like not being at the center of the perfor mance,” Picker said. “It is much less stressful, and I don’t go through the emo tional roller coaster of being the front guy and having to sing well and all that comes with it.”

Plus, he said it’s nice to not have to grasp at emotions within yourself like Picker does with the introspective folk music of Lost in the Trees.

“There is a bit less at tachment with the scoring because it is coming from a more objective external place,” he said.

For most, a live score would be a seemingly daunting task. However, when PlayMakers’ came to Lost in the Trees with the scoring request, it piqued its interest as something that it said could become a “fun collaboration.”

Nadeau is on piano and Picker is on percussion and synths. They said their min imalistic approach would allow their music to take a back seat to the performance, while adding all of the neces sary nuances to drive the au dience towards a particular reaction to the work.

The two act as “musical reinforcers,” as Picker puts it. It’s a role they fit perfectly into. The emotive tendencies of their regular work bleed over perfectly into their scor ing. Their pieces have enough personality to stand out as a striking work but enough subtlety to serve as a bril liant background—exactly as a good score should.

Picker plans to write future scores, and Nadeau seems re ceptive to the idea of future collaborations as well.

“I’ve also been fantasiz ing about writing music for dance pieces or more move ment-based theater,” she said.

The PlayMakers’ perfor mances of The Tempest and Metamorphoses are running Tuesday through Sunday from now until Dec. 8 on UNC-Chapel Hill’s campus.