Sandro Morales-Santoro: award-winning Film Composer from Venezuela

Conversations with Musicians, with Leah Roseman

This episode features the Venezuelan composer Sandro Morales-Santoro who composes for film, tv and new media and is based in L.A. In this episode you’ll hear lots of music and our in-depth conversation during which Sandro tells the inspiring story of how he learned to read and write music while attending law school in Venezuela, then was accepted into the Berklee college of music, and was awarded their achievement scholarship, then how moved to L.A. and created community both professionally and personally. Sandro is on the Executive committee for the Composers’ Diversity Collective and we talked about biases in the industry and increasing exposure for composers from diverse backgrounds. Sandro is the fourth film and tv composer I’ve featured so far on this podcast, please take a look at my complete catalog of episodes to check out episodes you may have missed. Like all my episodes, this is available wherever you listen to podcasts, is also a video on my YouTube channel, and the transcript is also linked: https://www.leahroseman.com/episodes/sandro-morales-santoro

I've included detailed timestamps below.

Please help me with a tip: https://ko-fi.com/leahroseman

Sandro Morales-Santoro Website: https://www.sandromorales.com/

Composers Diversity Collective: https://www.composersdiversitycollective.org/

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro

(02:25) Sandro’s start in music and family’s resistance to his aspirations

(07:27) studies with Angel Balan to learn composition, getting into Berklee after law school

(18:33) The Shadow of the Sun

(19:04) music clip Slices of Bread from The Shadow of the Sun

(23:16) using Venezuelan traditional styles, different South American instruments, various influences

(30:07) music clip A Decent Job from The Shadow of the Sun

(32:12) process of writing music for The Shadow of the Sun

(34:08) music clip Late for Work from The Shadow of the Sun

(35:14) Vela, Dayana Gauthier, emigration experience

(41:50) trailer to Vela

(42:57) the making of Vela

(45:39) prejudice, and the founding of the Composers Diversity Collective

(52:04) please help support this series with a tip! Ko-fi link in the description

(52:20) Composers Diversity Collective, Michael Abels, Amanda Jones

(57:30) learning about the film industry, making Vela, the role of the film composer

(01:05:07) writing for orchestra, use of synthesizers

(01:11:20) benefits of modular synthesizers

(01:13:19) demo of Eurorack synth

(01:16:56) feeling and expressing emotion in music and acting, The Shadow of the Sun

(01:22:07) creating community

(01:28:26) Restaurants at the End of the World, including 3 music clips by David Benjamin Steinberg and Sandro Morales-Santoro, National Geographic Disney+

(01:40:09) reflections on different careers in music, other film composers