Andrés Montero

The film Rio Seco, directed by Pedro Hernández, which I was delighted to compose an original score for, was released in select theaters in Colombia in July of 2019. We wanted to release the soundtrack along with the film but it was not possible at the time. Now here we are a year and half later, and I’m excited to share that it’s finally out and available for streaming and download on all major digital platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, etc.)

This is a very intimate score with minimal, but very impactful, appearances in the film. The runtime of the score is about 16 minutes. We intentionally stayed away from having wall-to-wall music since there is a lot of diegetic music played on an old stereo that the two main characters listen to frequently throughout the film.

The score features a small ensemble and it was recorded at 4th Street Recording Studio in Santa Monica, California. It was an honor to be able to record at this studio where some well known artists have recorded, including: No Doubt, Nelly Furtado, Weird Al Yankovic, Muse, Sean Paul, The Beach Boys and Incubus.

I would like to acknowledge everyone who worked with me on bringing the score to life and thank them for their contributions.

• Guitar: Ian Charlie
• Harp: Alyssa Katahara
• Accordion: Cara Batema
• Clarinet: Edgar López
• Violin: Aya Kiyonaga
• Viola: Jennifer Fagre
• Cello: Bingxia Lu
• Melodica: Andrés Montero
• Music Prep: Dalton Daniel, Candy Emberley, Jina Choi
• Recording: Sejo Navajas at 4th Street Recording, Santa Monica, California. 
• Mixing: Orlando Perez Rosso at Loud Mono, Los Angeles, California. 
• Mastering: Carlos Silva at C1 Mastering, Bogotá, Colombia. 

In an uplifting end to an incredibly challenging year, Netflix released the Dutch film The Claus Family. A magical Christmas film with score by the german composer Anne-Kathrin Dern.

This is the third film that I have orchestrated for Anne. It was recorded in Macedonia by the Fame’s Orchestral Music Recording, which did a fantastic job performing Anne’s music. You can watch a Behind the Music video here to get a glimpse of this whimsical score.

The film will be released on Netflix worldwide in the beginning of 2021.

FOSBO (Foundation Symphony Orchestra of Bogotá) is a musical organization of which I am a co-founder. We started the organization in 2008 under the leadership of maestro Zbigniew Zajac and since then, I’ve been arranging and composing music for a variety of ensembles and projects with FOSBO.

This year, on November 28th, 2020 FOSBO premiered a series of videos with four Colombian singers of different genres: Katie James (Traditional Colombian Music), Laura Kalop (Pop), Camilo Colmenares (Rock Pop) and Diana Avella (Hip Hop), performing their songs accompanied by a reduced orchestra and choir. The goal was to spread positivity to the country during the global health crisis impacting all of us, a message of hope that things will change for the better.

For this project, FOSBO also released a brand new song called Canto Para Que Cambie, written by Maria Adelaida Robledo, which I had the pleasure to arrange and orchestrate. Maria José Villamil conducted the FOSBO’s orchestra and choir. Watch the video of the song here:

Back in May of 2019, my friend, the talented composer Anne-Kathrin Dern, called me to join her team to work on the animated feature Fearless. She had the orchestra lined up in London to record the score at the legendary Abbey Road studio. The catch…the session was happening in less than 2 weeks, but of course I had to say yes! I came on board to work alongside Klaus Badelt’s long-time orchestrator Robert Elhai. It was a fast turn around, but we got all the music ready on time for the session in London.

The film came out on Netflix in August of 2020 and it’s now available to watch worldwide. Anne-Kathrin Dern wrote an epic adventure score that fits wonderfully with the film and we all felt very proud of the final result.

Here’s some footage from the recording session!

THE BEGINNING

A few years ago I received an email from Pedro Hernández asking if I would consider scoring a film he had directed. He gave me a short introduction of himself and a quick summary of the movie, then he simply said “watch the film and if you like it call me back”. I watched a rough cut without any expectations and found myself fully engaging with the film. It was honest and unpretentious and I completely fell in love with the story. Shortly after, I called Pedro and agreed to score the film.

At the very beginning Pedro had envisioned only one scene at the end of the movie needing music, a total of about 4 minutes of original score. The film has a lot of source music which is why he didn’t anticipate that much underscore. However, after watching the movie, I knew there were several other scenes that could be enhanced by adding music. As a composer, for me music is the soul of a film and because this movie had made such an impact on me already, I knew that by adding music to more scenes it could have an even deeper impact on the audience.

RECORDING THE SCORE

We recorded at 4th Street Recording Studio in Santa Monica, CA with Sejo Navajas as recording engineer. Orlando Perez Rosso mixed the music for me at Loud Mono in Los Angeles. Here’s a shout out to the talented musicians who were part of the score!

Ian Charlie, Guitar
Alyssa Katahara, Harp
Edgar David López, Clarinet
Cara Batema, Accordion
Aya Kiyonaga, Violin
Jennifer Fagre, Viola
Bingxia Lu, Cello

Dalton Daniel, Music Prep
Candy Emberley, Music Prep
Jina Choi, Music Prep

Soundtrack album and video of behind the scenes making the score coming soon!

Here are a few tracks from the score

THE FILM

FESTIVALS

• Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara (FICG). Mexico.

• Festival Iberoamericano de Cine de Huelva. Spain.

• Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano de La Habana. Cuba.

• Festival Internacional de Cine de Cartagena de Indias (FICCI). Colombia.

MAKING THE FILM

Watch this video with some of the best moments of the cast and crew during the making of Rio Seco!

Spitfire Audio, the sample library company, partnered with HBO and the creators of Westworld to organize a worldwide scoring competition. The prize was a hard drive with all their products, which has a value of more than $12,000 USD.

According to the organizers, more than 11,000 entries were submitted to the competition. Mine was one of those. Although I didn’t win, I had a blast writing for an exciting scene full of action with changes in mood and intensity. Here’s my submission:

Besides the competition, it was also a great opportunity for me to dive into the notation software by Steinberg, Dorico. I have been a Sibelius and Finale user for many years and I use them both on a daily basis, but I wanted to work with Dorico and discover its capabilities to score a film. I made a YouTube video explaining the main features that Dorico has to offer as well as some obstacles that I found while I was working on my submission. If you are interested in seeing Dorico in action, watch my video here:

Venena Bibas is a 25-minute film produced by Andrés Acosta and directed by Sergio Carreño. The story is centered on a seminarian who is discovered hanged in his bedroom. As the film develops, many secrets and mysteries are revealed.

I was fortunate enough to work as the composer on this project and I am very excited that the film is now available to rent or purchase through the streaming platform Boonet. (click here to watch the film).

Listen to the main theme I wrote for this film. Enjoy!

Here are other tracks that I wrote for the film.

Persecución. 

Confesión.

2019 began with an exciting new project, Sprite Sisters, a German feature film which I worked on as Lead Orchestrator. The recording sessions were held in Belgium with members of the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by the composer, Anne-Kathrin Dern. The movie is scheduled to be released at the end of the year.
In the Fall of 2018, I was contacted by Anne about the project and was excited to join her in working on it. I’m looking forward to seeing the final product and working with Anne again on future films.

While working on Sprite Sisters, I was thrilled to be invited by AVID to give a presentation with Anne at The NAMM Show about the process of writing music for films. Our topic of conversation was to describe our collaboration between composer and orchestrator on a feature film. Anne spoke about her own creative process in developing the music and the way in which she delivers the music to me for orchestration. I then shared information about my work flow using Sibelius as my notation software to create the scores and offered my tips and tricks of the trade to the audience members. This was a wonderful experience and I have to thank Anne and AVID for allowing me to participate.

In 2008, I became a founding member of the Foundation Symphony Orchestra of Bogota (FOSBO). I worked both as a pianist in the orchestra and an administrator. The orchestra played seasonal concerts at the Fine Arts Theater in Bogota and established an annual New Year’s Concert tradition.

I was privileged to be a part of the orchestra and it’s successes over the years as it grew as an organization. Now that I am living in the United States, I remain closely connected to the orchestra and was excited to create an arrangement for the New Year’s Concert this year. The arrangement was a medley of popular works made famous by Colombian pop singer, Carlos Vives, and was the first time I was given the opportunity to write for such a large ensemble including choir (El Coro de La Opera de Colombia), orchestra (FOSBO), and a piano soloist (Eduardo Rojas). The concert was conducted by Maestro Felipe Aguirre and was the celebration for thousands of Colombians which rang in the start of 2019.

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