Vangelis composed, arranged, and produced the music on his synthesizer since September 2003, and took almost a year to score due to re-editing of the film. He recalls "with "Alexander" I started working immediately, because Oliver needed music for his shooting. So some of the music, for the dances, for instance, I composed before the scenes were shot, working with the choreographer and so forth". He gave it to Nic Raine, who orchestrated it and conducted the result, with violinists Vanessa-Mae and Dominique Lemonnier, harpist Maria Bildea, the Epris Polyphonic Ensemble, tenor Konstantinos Paliatsaras, singer Irina Valentinovna Karpouchina, with around 200 players in the orchestra. According to Vangelis, 40% of the album is live while 60% synth.