Zacarías Martínez de la Riva is not a conventional composer. His career breaks the myth that an artistic career is born from vocation and innate ability. He was studying Telecommunications Engineering in Barcelona, his hometown, but he followed a friend's advice and let himself be carried away by his passion for John Williams' music and ended up studying composition and soundtrack creation in Boston.
For de la Riva, having talent is not enough. He believes that the basis of success is constant work, without forgetting strokes of luck, which are necessary to make a place for oneself in such a competitive world, which is very difficult to access. His stroke of luck came when Roque Baños, who was very busy at the time, said he couldn't score Tadeo Jones and recommended him. "He must have regretted it," de la Riva explains to us with an infectious smile. Today, after having settled in Madrid a few years ago, he is known for his work in this adventure saga and in the world of animation in general, a career that has just earned him a tribute from the main exhibition of this genre in Catalonia, the International Animation Film Festival of Catalonia (Animac), held in Lleida. He masterfully combines composition for different genres, as he has scored, in addition to animation works, many other diverse ones: from the most explicit horror cinema to Elías Querejeta's documentaries.
With dozens of awards and nominations, de la Riva stands out for his classical style, with Williams as the most evident reference, but with a sophisticated touch and without fear of experimentation: he likes to try new sonorities that can enrich the action. He now has pending the premiere of the soundtrack for Bent, the film starring Sofía Vergara, and also some animation works.