Meet Ana Vázquez-Landeros

We were lucky to catch up with Ana Vázquez-Landeros recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ana, great to have you with us today and excited to have you share your wisdom with our readers. Over the years, after speaking with countless do-ers, makers, builders, entrepreneurs, artists and more we’ve noticed that the ability to take risks is central to almost all stories of triumph and so we’re really interested in hearing about your journey with risk and how you developed your risk-taking ability.

I believe it began as a teenager when, at the literal last minute, I accepted the offer to attend my dream music school.

I severely struggled to make that decision because I was scared to leave behind the comfort of my small hometown and the possibility of not meeting academic expectations. At the time, my training was quite limited for pursuing a major in writing music instead of clarinet performance which was expected from my high school career. Accepting the offer, despite fear of failure, ended up being the best decision of my life.

I was thrown into a highly competitive and diverse community and was surrounded by people I aspired to achieve similar goals with. Taking the risk to uproot myself and move across the country on my own as a teen made me realize there was more the world could offer and I was really the only one standing in the way to pursue my goals. As time went by, I gained more confidence by auditioning for music festivals and professional opportunities on a whim which led to performing in some of the most prestigious concert halls and recording studios around the world. I believe surrounding myself with people I looked up to, and who reciprocated support in return, cultivated a safe space to take more risks.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I am a Mexican-American film composer from South Texas and currently based in Los Angeles, CA. As a musician, I enjoy focusing on heartfelt stories in my projects. I believe my music can serve a greater purpose when collaborating on films that have lifelong meaning such as to enlighten awareness for minority cultures or our negative impact on the environment.

Recently, some of my latest work included scoring Yungay, a Spanish animated short film based on true events and survivor accounts of the 1970 Huascarán debris avalanche in Peru. This was a special project where I got to collaborate with two friends, Daniel Quesada and Jason Polychronakos, on a Peruvian influenced score. The nature of the project was unique as our director, Marisa Bedoya, based the short film on her father’s experience surviving the disaster as a child. He was one of roughly 400 survivors, 300 of which were children. The creative process in composing the score was also special as the director relayed our works in progress to a focus group of other survivors, alongside her father, to remain as coherent to their Peruvian region as possible. Getting the opportunity to record the score with the Budapest Art Orchestra in Hungary and remote recording Andean flutes and charango in Costa Rica was a moment where we realized telling the story of Yungay, through our score, was continuing the legacy of its people.

In pursuing similar cultural themes, I also recently scored a documentary, Finding Home, which followed the director, Isabel Miranda, and her life story having lived across seven countries throughout childhood and facing the struggle to feel at home in any one place. Despite having a strong presence of Bolivian heritage from her father Romulo, Isabel’s collaboration with me on the musical score needed to reflect the multiple identities she assumed in her childhood. One of the reasons my job excites me is because I get to experience unique life perspectives of others even though this project was entirely produced in my Texas home studio while the film crew was based in Boston. My work also seems to take on a life of its own especially when the film had its screening at Boston’s Paramount Theatre where Isabel was finally able to define her life experience to family and friends.

Aside from connecting with collaborators and their stories, I also have the honor of working with amazing orchestras and musicians in recording my music. One of my favorite recording sessions occurred at AIR Studios in London where I conducted and produced my passion project, Perspective of You. An extremely personal endeavor, I wanted the project to embody my love for music collaboration which transformed the project from just an orchestral piece into a work for solo piano, mixed choir, and orchestra. The heart of this particular project grew beyond me when my group friends agreed to form a mixed choir and record solo piano for a separate recording session. The creative process was an absolute dream in writing and orchestrating music with the support I was given to produce this piece.

In regards to the future, I currently find myself in a transitionary period having moved to LA recently. The focus right now is to cultivate more connections in the film scoring industry as a new member of the Society of Composers & Lyricists, Composers Diversity Collective, and the Alliance for Women Film Composers. I am grateful that the move to LA has been extremely welcoming with the friends and professional connections I made from events and programs such as the Los Angeles Film Conducting Intensive. I’m excited for what the future holds in my career and I look forward to the stories I get to be a part of next.

Perspective of You Music Video: https://youtu.be/espdH4INcPs?si=xUsqKdvRZPsrTsmk
Finding Home site: https://isamiranda.com/films-1/project-one-ephnc-jpc9j
Yungay Instagram: @yungayshortfilm

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

I have met the greatest mentors and collaborators simply through having a positive energy and genuine conversation in networking. Looking back, these skills have opened so many doors for me that led to experiences I never imagined for myself before:

Do not limit yourself when opportunities arise.

Advocate for yourself and what you can offer; no one will know you exist unless you apply for the gig or job. Don’t cut your belief in yourself short. The worst thing that can happen is a “no” and you move on to the next professional opportunity.

Be a life-long learner.

It is okay to not know everything but apply yourself to evolve personal experience with technology and soft-skills like gracefully receiving constructive criticism. A lot of people don’t realize film scoring is a technologically heavy career where your work is constantly at the mercy of someone else’s creative vision and art which is subjective. Your art may not be for everyone but that is definitely not a reflection of your value.

Most importantly, knowing how to treat people kindly.

In the film scoring industry it is rare to find a “one-man band” therefore team-players are crucial to have alongside you and egos need to be left at the door. If people enjoy the creative process with you they will mostly likely keep calling you back around than others who only harbor their own agenda. I believe you shouldn’t ever think you are above anyone you meet, we are all artists here.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

As a composer, I dream of scoring films with lifelong meaning such as wildlife/environmental documentaries and heartfelt stories of the human condition. I enjoy collaborating on projects that enlighten social awareness for different cultures across the world, especially with current events leaving us divided in the world’s political climate. In my experience, collaborating with open-minded production teams made the creative process a dream to work in.

I would be delighted to have a conversation through my website at: https://anavazlanmusic.wixsite.com/mysite/contact

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Aida Redzepagic
Joshua Lu
Paul Zhao
Rex Russell
East Connection Music Recording

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