Frost School professor Carlos Rafael Rivera has received many accolades for his many film and television scores, including three Primetime Emmys, a GRAMMY, and multiple other prestigious awards and nominations. In May, he was awarded two BMI Film, TV & Visual Media Awards for his work on Netflix’s “Griselda” and HBO Max’s “Hacks.”
But no honor has thrilled Rivera as much as being named to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which inducted him in June. It was a childhood dream come true. Growing up in Central America and Miami, he recorded Oscar broadcasts so he could watch them over and over, dreaming of a world that seemed impossibly distant. “I felt like Charlie when he got the golden ticket to the chocolate factory,” said Rivera of joining the ranks of Oscar voters.
Rivera, who is chair of the Frost School’s Media Scoring and Production program and has taught at the school since 2010, remains perpetually inspired by composing music for movies and TV shows. His passion has only grown with the knowledge and experience he’s built in creating scores for Netflix’s “The Queen’s Gambit,” Apple TV’s “Lessons in Chemistry,” the films “A Walk Among the Tombstones” and “Chupa,” and other projects.
“The art is born from the craft and the collaboration,” said Rivera, who was a teenage rock fan and has composed for symphony orchestras. “The quality comes from time, craft, and sweat equity. I take pride in the fact that the quality of the work is as strong as it can be, because it’s so hard.”
His love of process is entwined with his love of teaching, which he started doing as a teenager in Miami, giving guitar lessons to help pay for college. Rivera often gives interviews where he delves deeply into how he composes. Recently, he posted multiple videos on his Instagram account explaining, in detail, the process behind his latest projects: Netflix’s buzzed-about new British detective series “Dept. Q,” and the fourth season of “Hacks.”
In July, Rivera received an Emmy nomination for his work on “Dept. Q,” further cementing the series’ impact and his reputation as one of the top composers in the industry.
Rivera also recently gave a masterclass about scoring for the screen at Festival Napa Valley, part of its collaboration with the Television Academy Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Television Academy. Rivera’s presentation kicked off the Foundation’s new series Access: Behind the Screens, a free program designed to inspire students and emerging talent interested in careers in the entertainment industry.
Why does he delve into the minutiae of drum tracks and character development? “To make it accessible to people who don’t think they can do it,” Rivera explained. “I used to watch all these videos on how people do what they do. It’s for the community of people coming up who might think that’s cool. It’s sharing the creative process, good and bad.”
For “Dept. Q,” Rivera worked with director and writer Scott Frank, a former guitar student who gave Rivera his first scoring job, on the film “A Walk Among the Tombstones,” and became a friend and collaborator with whom Rivera has worked multiple times, including on “Queens Gambit.”
Frank sent Rivera music by Celtic punk bands like Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphys that matched the intensity and dark tone of “Dept Q,” centered on the brilliant but misanthropic detective Carl Morck and his misfit colleagues. “The music was born from Scott’s direction—he wanted something muscular and tough,” Rivera said. “The story is about a man whose life is falling apart.” The resulting theme music is an edgy, throbbing, propulsive track that quickly creates a sense of menace, expanding with the story into more complex emotional and dramatic terrain. “You start reacting and creating music, and you hope it will be approved.”
With Frank, Rivera has the rare ability to work with a director who treats him and other members of a longtime team like collaborators. (It includes famed veteran sound designer Wylie Stateman, whom they call Obi-Wan Kenobi.) “It’s Scott’s band of misfits, and it’s a privilege to work with them,” Rivera said. “What’s standard is [the show] is cut, edited, they put on temporary music, and then I come in. With Scott, it’s very much from the ground up. You have the luxury of time.”
When working on Frank’s projects, Rivera starts by reading the screenplay and other source material (for “Dept. Q,” he read the best-selling Danish crime novel, “The Keeper of Lost Causes,” that inspired the show). Then he composes for scenes as they’re shot and edited, creating the music along with the series. “It’s like building the plane while you’re flying,” Rivera said. “But I think it makes a better story.”
View this post on Instagram
His process with “Hacks” is very different. The multi-Emmy-winning series is about a veteran comedian, Deborah Vance, who’s struggling to stay relevant, and her conflicted relationship with her young, hipster writer, Ava Daniels. Rivera was excited to score his first comedy when he was brought on in early 2021, and is gratified that the show, whose fourth season premiered this spring, has been such a success. With “Hacks,” Rivera is responding to a very specific assignment. “The showrunners know what they want and when they want it,” Rivera said, which is to focus on the primary characters in a show sprinkled with pop music. “Ava’s music is ascending, Deborah’s music is descending,” Rivera said, matching the trajectory of their lives, although this shifts with the story. “Our job with the score is the characters.”
No matter what he’s working on, Rivera stays focused on his role. “It comes from the clear understanding that you’re working for the person in charge and it’s their vision,” he said. “The success of the score depends on the success of your communication with that person. To make sure they’re happy. Because if you’re happy and they’re not, you’re fired. The art is born from the success of the craft and that collaboration.”
Rivera is as passionate about teaching as he is about composing. “You could say it’s a calling,” he said. “I really like the idea of sharing knowledge.” When he was young, he was inspired by Leonard Bernstein’s famous “The Unanswered Question” lecture series at Harvard. “He was a massive role model for me as a teacher,” Rivera said. “His timing is impeccable; his ideas are so clear. Being able to do that is a gift, a real skill.”
He never uses his own projects to teach at the Frost School, preferring to use his career instead to demonstrate potential pitfalls or how to navigate the industry. (He made an exception last winter, when one of his classes watched a “Dept. Q” recording session with an orchestra in Budapest on Zoom.)
Instead, teaching is a way to keep learning and sharing what inspires him. “My goal is to make it so you want to learn about the thing you want to do.”
