Álex Conrado (born 29 March 1969) is a Spanish soundtrack composer for TV and cinema.
Biography
Born and raised in
Madrid
Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...
, he has been musical since an early age. At seven he learnt to play the guitar and, at twelve, he and his brother formed a band and composed, sang and performed their own songs.
He attended the
Madrid Royal Conservatory
The Madrid Royal Conservatory () is a music college in Madrid, Spain.
History
The Royal Conservatory of Music was founded on July 15, 1830, by royal decree, and was originally located in Mostenses Square, Madrid. In 1852 it was moved to the Roy ...
, where he studied piano, orchestration and composition, and he graduated in 1996 with the Flora Prieto Award in harmony and composition.
Between 1991 and 1999, he researched and studied under famous avant-garde composers such as
György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti (; ; 28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as "one of the most important avant-garde music, avant-garde composers in the latter half of the ...
,
Helmut Lachenmann
Helmut Friedrich Lachenmann (; born 27 November 1935) is a German composer of contemporary classical music and pianist. Associated with the "instrumental musique concrète" style, Lachenmann is alongside Wolfgang Rihm as among the leading Germa ...
, Klaus Metzger, Mathias Espahlinger,
Mauricio Kagel
Mauricio Raúl Kagel (; 24 December 1931 – 18 September 2008) was an Argentine-German composer and academic teacher.
Life and career Early life and education
Mauricio Raúl Kagel was born on 24 December 1931 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, into an ...
,
Franco Donatoni, and
Brian Ferneyhough
Brian John Peter Ferneyhough (; born 16 January 1943) is an English composer. Ferneyhough is typically considered the central figure of the New Complexity movement. Ferneyhough has taught composition at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg and ...
.
Interested in discovering new musical languages, he entered the field of
electroacoustic music
Electroacoustic music is a Music genre, genre of Western art music in which composers use recording technology and audio signal processing to manipulate the timbres of Acoustics, acoustic sounds in the creation of pieces of music. It originated a ...
. In 1993 he co-founded the Laboratory of Electroacoustic Music at the Conservatorio Padre Soler, where he worked as a composer until 1996. That same year, the CDMC (Center for the Diffusion of Contemporary Music) granted Alex a scholarship that allowed him to research and work in the laboratories of the center.
In 1996 he became the director of the Conservatorio Maestro Alonso, in
San Lorenzo del Escorial, Spain, and held this position until 2004.
Film music
Parallel to his activity as a classic musician, and as his interest for film music grew stronger, he spent four years studying under film music composers of Spain, such as
Antón García Abril
Antón García Abril OAXS (19 May 1933 – 17 March 2021) was a Spanish composer and musician. He composed many classical orchestral works, chamber and vocal pieces, as well as over 150 scores for film and television.
Biography
Between 1974 ...
, Carmelo Bernaola and
José Nieto.
One of his first approaches to film music has been with
Pedro Almodóvar
Pedro Almodóvar Caballero (; born 25 September 1949) is a Spanish film director, screenwriter and author. His films are distinguished by Melodrama (film genre), melodrama, irreverent humour, bold colour, glossy décor, quotations from popular c ...
’s film ''La Flor de mi Secreto'' (1996), in which he worked as an assistant for composer
Alberto Iglesias.
In 2002, he created the course "Techniques for Film Music Composition," taught at the Conservatorio Virtual. This programme has graduated nearly two hundred students from all around the globe.
His first commissioned full-length film came in 2004 with the movie ''Cinemart'', directed by
Jordi Mollá.
A year later, he created the music score for the film ''Viure sense por'' (''A Life Without Fear''), directed by Carlos Perez Ferré and produced by In Vitro Films, for which he was awarded the Best Film Soundtrack Award at the Mostra Cinema Valencia. Since then, Alex has worked regularly for In Vitro Films and his scores can be found in many of the company's productions.
He has recently worked with advertisements, with director
Carlos Lascano for the Al Balad advertisement campaign, awarded at the 2009
Dubai Lynx International Advertising Festival.
In 2011 we worked with Lascano again, this time in "A Shadow of Blue" a mixed-technique animated short film that got pre-selected to the
84th edition of the Academy Awards.
During 2011 and the beginning of 2012, Alex composed the music for two Spanish TV shows, both broadcast by
Antena 3: ''
El secreto de Puente Viejo'' and ''
Toledo''.
For "El Secreto de Puente Viejo", Alex received a
nomination for Best Music in the XV edition of the Iris Awards of the Academia de las Ciencias y las Artes de Televisión de España.
Works
*2004 ''Cinemart'' (Directed by Jordi Mollá)
*2005 ''Viure sense por'' (Directed by Carlos Pérez)
*2006 ''Libro de familia'' (Directed by Ricard Figueras)
*2006 ''Tirando a dar'' (Directed by Cesar Rodríguez)
*2007 ''Para que nadie olvide tu nombre'' (Directed by Cesar Martínez)
*2007 ''El estafador'' (Directed by Ricard Figueras)
*2008 ''Adrenalina'' (Directed by Joseph Johnson and Ricard Figueras)
*2008 ''Violetas'' (Directed by Rafa Montesinos)
*2011 ''El secreto de Puente Viejo'' (Different directors)
*2011 ''A Shadow of Blue'' (Directed by Carlos Lascano)
*2011 ''Return'' (Directed by Nikita Ovsyannikov)
*2012 ''Toledo'' (Directed byLuis Santamaría)
*2015 "Acacias 38"
References
External links
Alex Conrado’s official website*
Alex Conrado at VimeoAlex Conrado at the Conservatorio VirtualIn Vitro FilmsDubai Lynx International Advertisement Festival
{{DEFAULTSORT:Conrado, Alex
1969 births
Spanish composers
Spanish male composers
Living people