Grammy-Recognized Composer & Recording Engineer Aldo Arechar Brings Musical Magic to Hollywood and Beyond
Aldo Arechar knows that a captivating score is the magical ingredient that brings visual media to life. It is the audience’s emotional guide, bringing another, more subtle dimension of storytelling to motion pictures. Working alongside some of Hollywood’s most lauded composers, Aldo Arechar has brought his magic touch to the silver screen and established himself as a major talent in the film industry.
The son of a doctor and a kindergarten director in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, Aldo Arechar was encouraged to explore his childhood interests to the fullest. When his curiosity turned to piano at the age of six, Arechar completely immersed himself in music. As his burgeoning curiosity bloomed into passion, impressed instructors and well-received recitals encouraged him to journey deeper into the realms of percussion, electronic music, and eventually, composition.
While working as the musical director for Cocolab, a multimedia company in Mexico City, Arechar seized the opportunity to put his music to picture, scoring ad campaigns for Discovery Channel’s “Animal Planet,” Audi, FedEx, Ford, Jaguar and Johnny Walker, along with many others. The success of these highly visible advertisements took Arechar’s captivating compositions further into the corporate spotlight, and before long he began curating interactive experiences in Mexico City, including AT&T’s new flagship Corporate Experience Center and the BBVA Bancomer Tower inauguration show.
For three consecutive years, Aldo Arechar composed music for Aldea Digital, the largest digital inclusion event in the world, with high-profile attendees including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, former Forbes Magazine’s richest-man-in-the-world Carlos Slim, and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. The Mexican government took notice of Arechar’s outstanding work, and soon commissioned him to compose music for more than 30 government-sponsored cultural events and exhibitions.
Aldo Arechar’s national acclaim reached its zenith when the Mexican government contracted him to compose music for two of Mexico’s most significant cultural events, the Teotihuacan Night Experience and the Chichen Itza Night Show. As UNESCO World Heritage sites, the temple grounds of Teotihuacan and Chichen Itza are world-famous for their monolithic pyramids, erected over one thousand years ago by the Aztecs and Mayans, respectively.
Each year, millions of tourists flock to these ancient anthropological sites to marvel at these architectural wonders. By night, the world-famous pyramids are illuminated with a dazzling multimedia show, with lasers, lights, and music illustrating stories of Mexico’s proud heritage. With the National Institute of Anthropology’s library of sounds at his disposal, Arechar crafted 40-minute compositions to enhance these unforgettable cultural experiences.
“The most fulfilling thing about this project was being able to represent my country with my music,” says Aldo Arechar. “I had the chance to learn so much about my culture and to feature musicians that have dedicated their lives to preserve the prehispanic instruments and rhythms.”
Through the merit of this work, Aldo Arechar’s inspired arrangements were soon featured in exhibitions across the globe, namely the Hannover Messe inauguration, ITB Berlin — the world’s largest tourism trade fair — and the Mexican Pavilion at Expo Milano, a global event that attracted more than 30 million visitors.
As his prestige as a composer continued to grow, Arechar pushed his career further into the spotlight with a move to Los Angeles, CA. His impressive body of work was quickly recognized by the film industry’s elite audio teams, and he soon found himself as a full-time engineer at Remote Control Productions, where he is currently employed. Arechar’s dedication to both the technical and musical elements of his craft earned fast praise from his new colleagues.
“Aldo is a knowledgeable music composer and engineer whose work always sounds musical and well-balanced,” says Soya Soo, a fellow audio engineer who partnered with Arechar on several major film productions, including Disney’s “Ralph Breaks The Internet” and Marvel’s “X-Men: Dark Phoenix.” Soo further stated, “He really knows how to get the most out of the latest technologies to bring a story to life — I’m always amazed by his work!”
In his time with Remote Control Productions, Aldo Arechar has relished the opportunity to work with some of the most prolific composers in Hollywood, including his heroes Henry Jackman, Ludwig Göransson, and the legendary Hans Zimmer. Through these collaborations Arechar has gained an incredible amount of top-level technical experience as well as a thorough understanding of the team initiative necessary to meet the deadlines of highly-anticipated productions.
Recalling these collaborations, Aldo Arechar says, “All of the best composers create a team infrastructure which affords them the creative freedom they require, both musically and technologically. It’s very inspiring to watch that happen.”
Arechar’s multi-faceted technical prowess allows him to function in several roles within the Remote Control Productions studio. As score technical assistant for two-time Academy Award-winning director Ron Howard’s “Hillbilly Elegy,” Arechar worked directly with the session musicians, arranging musical charts to facilitate the recording process. Once recorded, Arechar edited, mixed and prepared these sessions for the studio’s head mixer to finalize.
Aldo Arechar has earned score mixer assistant credits on several well-received productions, including the sensational Disney+ series “The Mandalorian,” the Netflix original film “6 Underground” starring Ryan Reynolds, and the Warner Bros. feature film “Wonder Woman 1984.” In this role, Arechar acted as the right hand of the head mixer, setting up sessions, organizing and arranging mixes, communicating with talent, and mixing files for Dolby 7.1 surround sound. This invaluable support day in, day out is what allows recording studios to operate at maximum efficiency.
With a bevy of critically-acclaimed productions already under his belt, one of Aldo Arechar’s biggest achievements came in 2019 with Disney’s ”The Lion King.” As a full-time audio engineer on Hans Zimmer’s team, Arechar worked in the studio to record musicians and vocalists for the film’s iconic soundtrack. In addition to recording, he was also assigned the task of restoring audio from the original tapes recorded for the 1995 version of Disney’s ”The Lion King.”
As this was an enormous production on a tight deadline, Arechar had the challenge of capturing the musicians’ performances and immediately delivering them to the mixer in order for the project to be completed on time. This pressure brought the best out of Arechar’s already elite skill set, as he and the team rose to the challenge and accomplished their objective with aplomb.
As a testament to his talent, Aldo Arechar and the rest of the team’s efforts were recognized with a nomination for the Best Score Soundtrack Award for Visual Media at the 62nd Grammy Awards. He acknowledges that working with Zimmer and his team was the culmination of all his previous experiences, and it has taken his expertise to levels beyond imagination.
“Everybody on the team had to be on top of their game,” said Arechar, recounting his experience working with Hans Zimmer. “I think all of my previous experience, musically and technically, prepared me to deliver the high quality work that the world has come to expect from a Disney production.”
Arechar’s experiences as a composer and audio engineer run the studio gamut, as his spectrum of technical expertise and wide-range of sonic creativity have made him a valuable asset to some of Hollywood’s most ambitious projects and renowned composers in recent years. With his place among the studio elite firmly established, the future is bright, and Arechar is keen to bring his auricular magic to the eager ears of audiences everywhere.
“Everybody on the team had to be on top of their game,” said Arechar, recounting his experience working with Hans Zimmer. “I think all of my previous experience, musically and technically, prepared me to deliver the high quality work that the world has come to expect from a Disney production.”
Arechar’s experiences as a composer and audio engineer run the studio gamut, as his spectrum of technical expertise and wide-range of sonic creativity have made him a valuable asset to some of Hollywood’s most ambitious projects and renowned composers in recent years. With his place among the studio elite firmly established, the future is bright, and Arechar is keen to bring his auricular magic to the eager ears of audiences everywhere.
