Gustavo Santaolalla

Gustavo Alfredo Santaolalla (born 19 August 1951) is an Argentine composer.

He has been a collaborator with acclaimed director Alejandro González Iñárritu, composing the first four psychological drama films Iñárritu directed.

Gustavo Alfredo Santaolalla was born in Ciudad Jardín Lomas del Palomar on 19 August 1951.

Santaolalla's music career began in 1967 when he co-founded the group Arco Iris, a rock band that pioneered the fusion of rock and Latin American folk known as rock nacional.

The band adopted the lifestyle of a yoga commune guided by former model Danais "Dana" Winnycka 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 musical expression (notably a ballet piece for Oscar Aráiz).

However, Santaolalla felt constricted by the strict requirements of Dana's teachings, which prohibited the consumption of meat, alcohol, and drugs; he left the group in 1975.

In 1976, Santaolalla assembled Soluna, a band in which he played alongside teenage pianist and singer Alejandro Lerner and his then-girlfriend Monica Campins.

Together they recorded just one album (Energía Natural in 1977).

He then left for Los Angeles, where he adopted a rock and roll sound and formed the band Wet Picnic with ex-Crucis member Aníbal 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 1980s sound into rock in Argentina for the first time.

He was joined by Lerner and the Willy Iturri-Alfredo Toth rhythm section, who were two-thirds of the band GIT.

Santaolalla began working on film soundtracks in the late 1990s, producing albums for the films Amores Perros, 21 Grams, and The Motorcycle Diaries.

His second album, titled Gas, was released in 1995.

Santaolalla's most recent solo album, Ronroco (1998), contained several tracks with the characteristic sound of the folk string instrument of the same name, which later became a defining instrument in his soundtrack work.

He won Academy Awards for Best Original Score in two consecutive years, first for Brokeback Mountain (2005) and then Babel (2006).

He provided the instrumental music for the soundtrack to the 2005 film Brokeback Mountain, from which "A Love That Will Never Grow Old" won the 2006 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.

In 2005, he received the Platinum Konex Award as best Argentine artistic producer of the 1995-2005 decade.

Santaolalla received the 2006 Academy Award for Original Score for Brokeback Mountain.

Ronroco also contains his solo piece for Iguazu Falls, "Iguazu," which was later used in films such as The Insider, Collateral and Babel, as well as a 2007 Vodafone TV commercial and TV series such as Deadwood, 24, and Top Gear.

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 the Mexican acts Neón, Maldita Vecindad, Fobia, Molotov, Café Tacuba, and Julieta Venegas; the Colombian singer Juanes; the Chilean rock trio Los Prisioneros; fellow Argentine rock musicians Divididos, Bersuit Vergarabat, Érica García, and León Gieco, among many others.

In 2007, he received his second Academy Award for the film score to Babel, and dedicated the award to his father and his home country Argentina.

Santaolalla acted as the producer of Gaby Kerpel's Carnabailito and co-produced the Kronos Quartet's Nuevo, an album which renders homage to the musical heritage of Mexico.

He has also been part of the resurgent neo-tango movement, as the prime mover behind the Bajofondo Tango Club collective.

He is mentioned as the co-producer of Calle 13's song "Tango del Pecado", a song from their album Residente o Visitante.

In 2008, he composed the soundtrack for the Louis Vuitton film Where Will Life Take You? directed by Bruno Aveillan.

Later that year, he recorded two songs on "All You Need Is Me", a single by English singer Morrissey.

The tracks, "Children In Pieces" and "My Dearest Love", were recorded in Los Angeles.

Santaolalla directed music for Aamir Khan's movie Dhobi Ghat, which was released on 21 January 2011.

He 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 García Lorca, and Ayre, a collection of folk songs, in which Santaolalla plays with a group that calls itself The Andalucian Dogs.

He provided the score for the 2012 film On the Road, produced by Francis Ford Coppola and directed by Walter Salles.

That same year, he was nominated for Producer of the Year at the Latin Grammy Awards for his work on De Noche (Antonio Carmona), Entre la Ciudad y el Mar (Gustavo Galindo), and Rêverie (Luciano Supervielle), co-produced with Juan Campodónico from Bajofondo.

He is known for his work on The Last of Us franchise, having composed the original scores for the video games The Last of Us (2013) and The Last of Us Part II (2020), and for his work on the HBO adaptation, having created the theme music and co-scored the soundtrack with David Fleming.

Santaolalla received critical acclaim for composing the score to the 2013 action-adventure video game The Last of Us, which was his first experience in the video game industry.

His other notable work includes writing the themes for television series such as the American satirical romantic dramedy series Jane the Virgin (2014–2019), the MBC 4 satirical romantic dramedy series Miss Farah (2019–2022), an Arabic adaptation of Jane the Virgin, and Making a Murderer (2015–2018).

In 2020, he returned to compose the music for its sequel, The Last of Us Part II.