La Conferencia De Billboard

ASCAP Presents showcase at the 2008 Latin Billboard Music Conference in Miami

Gilad Ben-Amram

Gilad Ben-Amram

Film composer and producer Gilad Ben-Amram recently completed his second, highly anticipated collaboration with director Marcos Siega, the Warner Bros romantic comedy Chaos Theory. The two first worked together on the film Pretty Persuasion - a dark comedy that sent shock waves through the Sundance Film Festival where it premiered in 2005. Ben-Amram’s scores for both of Siega’s films feature a unique combination of Jazz, orchestral music and “world-like” instrumental choices that has by now become his signature scoring sound. Gilad’s musical background is as eclectic and fascinating as his compositions. He spent most of his teens leading a rock band, working as a studio guitarist and scoring dance shows and theatre plays. Moving to New York at the age of 22, he attended the prestigious Manhattan School of Music for Jazz composition studies. Determined tomake a career in film scoring, Ben-Amram relocated to Los Angeles in 2000 and participated in ASCAP's Film ScoringWorkshop in 2001. This led him to scoring work such as RX, Danika, the Japanese art film Face of a Fig Tree and the documentary feature Victory Over Darkness. Ben-Amram currently teaches composition and film scoring at New York University and Manhattan School Of Music. His upcoming film projects include the thrillers Mechaneck and The Ice Man – the true story of a hit man working for the NY Mafia in the 70’s.

Marcelo Zarvos

Marcelo Zarvos

Composer Marcelo Zarvos has a constant stream of new projects in the works, not only in New York and Los Angeles, but also in his native country, Brazil. Zarvos has upcoming scores for Barry Levinson’s Hollywood satire What Just Happened? (starring Robert DeNiro, Sean Penn, Bruce Willis and Katherine Keener), Bruno Barreto’s gritty crime tale 174 and Rowan Woods’ powerful drama Winged Creatures (starring Forrest Whitaker, Dakota Fanning and Kate Beckinsale). Some of Zarvos’s recent scores include The Good Shepherd, Hollywoodland, You Kill Me and The Door in the Floor. In addition to scoring films, lately Marcelo has written dance scores for Pilobolus and an NEA commission for string quartet Ethel.


Jeff Cardoni

Jeff Cardoni

Originally trained in classical piano, composer Jeff Cardoni made a decision to become a professional musician, eschewing the keys for guitar and relocating to Los Angeles. The move payed off, and Cardoni now splits his time between a variety of film and television projects. His work ranges from studio features such as Just Friends, Firehouse Dog, and the latest in the American Pie franchise, to television scores for shows like ABC’s Miss Guided and Morgan Spurlock’s 30 Days. Cardoni has scored everything from the worldwide hit CSI: Miami to Oscar-nominated director Roland Joffe’s newest film You And I at Cannes. Currently Cardoni is scoring the feature Beer for My Horses, which was written by and stars country megastar Toby Keith.


Mateo Messina

Mateo Messina

Mateo Messina’s unique style of writing, which has invited a new sound of simplicity to film scoring, was the perfect choice to accompany the quiet and sweet surprise box office hit of 2008, Juno. The soundtrack for the film went to #1 on the Billboard charts and is now certified Gold. Besides finding box office success, Mateo has recently branched into TV scoring, as a pilot he scored, The Ex List, was recently picked up for CBS' upcoming fall season. Mateo’s style of composing is unique and varied. He sometimes uses an entire orchestra, and sometimes much simpler found items like brushes on green apples and on the grates of fans, water poured into a bucket instead of a bass drum, and a cardboard canister of sea salt instead of a shaker. As far as his orchestral work, Mateo recently debuted his 10th symphony with special guests Alice In Chains and Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart. A philanthropist with his talent, Mateo writes a new symphony each year and gives the proceeds from each debut to Children’s Hospital in Seattle.



— Lavinia Jones Wright