Gustavo Alfredo Santaolalla
(born 19 August 1951) is an Argentine
musician, film composer and producer.
Life and career
Santaolalla was born in El
Palomar
, Argentina. His professional music career began in
1967, when he co-founded the group
Arco
Iris, an Argentine band that pioneered the fusion of rock and
Latin American folk as part of '
rock
nacional'. The band adopted the lifestyle of a
yogic commune guided by former
model Danais Wynnycka (known as Dana) and her partner, musician Ara
Tokatlian. The band had a few hits, such as
Mañanas
Campestres ("Country Mornings"), and made inroads into
different forms of expression (notably a ballet piece for Oscar
Aráiz), but Santaolalla felt constricted by the strict requirements
of Dana's teachings, which forbid meat, alcohol and drugs, and
mandated abstinence from sex. He left the group in 1975.
A year later, he assembled Soluna, in which he played alongside
teenage pianist and singer
Alejandro
Lerner and his then-girlfriend Monica Campins. Together they
recorded just one album (
Energia Natural, 1977).
Santaolalla left for Los Angeles
, where he adopted a rock
and roll sound and made the rounds with his band Wet Picnic,
together with ex-Crucis member Anibal
Kerpel.He briefly returned to Argentina in 1981, to
produce
Leon Gieco's
Pensar en
Nada and record his first solo album.
As a solo artist, he has recorded three albums. His first
self-titled album,
Santaolalla (1981), broke new ground by
incorporating the "eighties" sound into rock in Argentina for the
first time. He was joined by Lerner and the Willy Iturry-Alfredo
Toth rhythm section, who were two-thirds of the band GIT. His
second album, titled
Gas, was released in 1995. His most
recent solo album, titled
Ronroco (1998), contained
several tracks with the characteristic sound of the
charango, a folk string instrument, that
poured into what constituted his next significant endeavor: music
for movies.
Ronroco also contains his
(nearly)-solo piece for charango Iguazu
, which has
been used in The Insider
by Michael Mann, Collateral also
by Michael Mann, Babel by Alejandro González
Iñárritu, a 2007 Vodafone TV
commercial, as well as the HBO TV series Deadwood. It also contains the
track
De Ushuaia a La Quiaca used by
Walter Salles in his
The Motorcycle
Diaries.
Santaolalla aided the development of rock en español by acting as producer
for Mexican
acts
Maldita Vecindad, Fobia, Molotov, Café Tacuba, Julieta Venegas, the Colombian
singer Juanes, Chilean rock
trio Los Prisioneros, Argentine rock
bands Divididos and Bersuit Vergarabat and León Gieco's "De Ushuaia a La Quiaca" (1 and
2), among many others.
Santaolalla transferred his efforts to film
soundtracks in the late 1990s, producing albums
for the films
Amores Perros,
21 Grams and
The Motorcycle Diaries.
Currently
based in California
where he first moved in 1978, one of his more
recent contributions has been to the instrumental music for the
soundtrack to the
2005 Ang Lee film, Brokeback Mountain, from which
"A Love That Will Never
Grow Old" won the 2006 Golden
Globe Award for Best Original
Song. Santaolalla has received a
2006 Academy Award for
Achievement in music
written for motion pictures for
Brokeback Mountain. In
2007, he received his second Academy Award for the film score to
Babel, beating out such
composers as
Thomas Newman,
Alexandre Desplat, and
Javier Navarrete. Gustavo dedicated the
award to his father and to his country Argentina.
In addition to his film work, Santaolalla has acted as the producer
of
Gaby Kerpel's
Carnabailito
and co-produced the
Kronos Quartet's
Nuevo, an album which renders homage to the rich musical
heritage of Mexico. He has also been part of the resurgent
neo-tango movement, as prime mover
behind the
Bajofondo Tango Club
collective. He is also mentioned as the co-producer of
Calle 13's song "
Tango del Pecado", from their upcoming
album
Residente o
Visitante. In 2005 he received the
Konex Award as best Argentine artistic producer
of the 1995-2005 decade.
In 2008, Santaolalla composed the soundtrack for the
Louis Vuitton film "Where will life take you?"
directed by
Bruno Aveillan, as part
of the "Journeys" Campaign.
Recently, Santaolalla has recorded two songs on "
All You Need Is Me", a single by British
singer
Morrissey. The tracks, "Children In
Pieces" and "My Dearest Love" were recorded in Los Angeles with
producer Jerry Finn.
Santaolalla has also collaborated with Argentine Composer
Osvaldo Golijov on several projects
commissioned by soprano
Dawn Upshaw.
These include the opera,
Ainadamar, based on the murder of
Spanish poet
Federico Garcia
Lorca, and
Ayre, a collection of folk songs, in which
Santaolalla plays with a group that calls itself The Andalucian
Dogs.
Santaolalla currently lives in Los Angeles, California with his
wife of twenty-three years Alejandra Palacios and children Luna (b.
1995) and Don Juan Nahuel (b. 1999). His eldest daughter Ana (b.
1980) is from his previous relationship with Monica Campins.
Filmography
Awards and nominations
Awards
Nominations
References
- Gustavo Santaolalla
External links
(2004) (TV)
Wikis
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