Introducing Composer Zeltia Montes...

ScoreNotes is proud to introduce Zeltia into the Composer Spotlight Series. Please get to know more about Zeltia through the interview and sound clips below:

SN: For listeners who are new to your work, can you please provide some background about yourself?

ZM: Yes, of course, I have been studying music since I was about 4 years old, though from that time I just remember I fell in love with Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata and I thought I just wanted to learn piano to be able to play it. I started to compose in a natural way at the age of 9 and my compositions at that time were in the style of the pieces I was playing. My compositions developed as my musical experiences widened and I started to write songs for some time. Songwriting has always been close to me since I loved to sing songs with my father when I was a child. After that came concert music and I have been mesmerized by all of the great composers at different points of my life, and then came film music. Film Scoring for me was another kind of art that caught me because I felt it as a mixture of painting and composing, but I still like to compose concert music and songs too. In the meantime of all this composing I obtained a Teacher Certificate in Piano from the Professional Conservatory of Madrid and a Degree in Theory of Music, Accompaniment, Solfeggio and Transposition from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid. After this and some studies in modern music I moved to Boston to study Film Scoring and obtained a Dual Major Degree in Classical Composition and Film Scoring from Berklee College of Music. I have mainly been combining my activities as a composer for film and TV with several commissions for orchestra and recently I have moved to Los Angeles to continue working as a film composer.

SN: At what age did you know that writing music for films is what you wanted to seriously pursue in life?

ZM: I had thought about composing for films in many occasions but didn’t really consider it seriously until I had a teacher that was a film composer herself and I began to see it as a real possibility. I was about 23 years old and I was studying modern harmony at the “Creative Music School” in Madrid and I decided to apply to Berklee to study Film Scoring.

SN: Can you tell us about some of the projects you've worked on in the past calendar year, and specifically, your work on Pradolongo?

ZM:This past calendar year has been especially busy for me. I was chosen to compose a piece for the prestigious “Alea III” chamber orchestra conducted by Theodore Antoniou. The piece “En Las Musarañas” was premiered at the Tsai Performance Center in Boston. I was also the film composer winner for the “Berklee Contemporary Symphony Orchestra” season 2007/08 composition contest and wrote an adaptation of my main title “El Camino del Cid” for full orchestra. The piece was performed at the Berklee Performance Center with this 80 piece orchestra. As for film music, I composed the original music for the main title and presentation of each episode for the TV Series “El Camino del Cid” with a Mediterranean orchestration and melody including Christian, Muslim and Jewish fusion. It was aired in Spanish National Television and is now on TVE International channel.

The other major work I did last year was the score to the feature film “Pradolongo” by Galician director Ignacio Vilar. It was a real pleasure for me to work in this film because it deals with the pure feelings and fears of first love and the fight of a teenager to defend the Galician countryrside. To reflect such a complex but sincere feeling I decided to create a simple and tender melody and I brought it close to the Galician landscape through an unusual and even delicate use of the traditional instruments of the area such as bagpipes, celtic harp, zanfona (a type of hurdy-gurdy) flutes and percussion. I also used acoustic guitar to evoke the atmosphere of teenage friendship and the strings from the Galicia Symphony Orchestra to add depth and make it more dramatic at certain moments. For this soundtrack I won the Jerry Goldsmith Award for the Best Score in Feature Film at the IV International Film Music Conference “City of Ubeda” 2008.

SN: How proud a moment was it for you to receive the Jerry Goldsmith 2008 Award for the Best Young Composer?

ZM: It was a real honor for me to have won the Jerry Goldsmith 2008 for the Best Young Composer, since this is the most important award of the ceremony and is elected amongst the winners in each category. Both awards were given to me by composer Bruce Broughton and having admired his music for a very long time it made it even more special. I also feel that an award with the name of such an amazing composer carries a big responsibility as Jerry was one of the most daring and versatile composers in the history of film music. It was a very emotional moment for me and I decided to dedicate it to my mother for working so hard to allow me to study in the United States and pursue my dream of becoming a film composer.

SN: Who were some of your inspirations growing up and what were some of your favorite scores?

ZM: When growing up I listened to all kinds of music, from Spanish songwriters and pop-rock bands to classical composers, especially the piano music of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Debussy, and also major film composers such as Bernard Herrmann, Ennio Morricone or Henry Mancini. I was more interested in the emotions the music made me feel than in the originality of the compositions, though now I believe both things are vital. As I grew up I started to listen to more different kinds of music and was more into Stravinsky, Shostakovich or Falla and listened to some world music, jazz and cuban music. Some of the film scores that have marked me are Herrmann’s “Vertigo”, Goldsmith’s “Planet of the Apes”, Steiner’s “Gone with the Wind”, Broughton’s “Silverado”, Mancini’s “Peter Gunn”, William’s “E.T.”, Morricone’s “Cinema Paradiso”, Silvestri’s “Forrest Gump”, Doyle’s “Sense and Sensibility”, Iglesias’ “Sex and Lucia”, Yared’s “The English Patient”, Thomas Newman’s “American Beauty” and so many others.

SN: As you gain more experience in the industry,what can soundtrack fans lookforward to from your work in the future?

ZM: I hope soundtrack fans can find in my music some creativity and uniqueness, as well as very sensitive writing that’s intimately related to the images and the story. I really wish I get to work in films that mean something to me and with directors that value exploring and dare to risk. Having said this I still want to make my music accessible and compose emotionally moving music that can bring out feelings that words can’t and hopefully mean something to other people.

SN: Thank you for joining us, Zeltia. I look forward to catching up with you again in the near future!