Composer and Producer with credits in over 60 Videogames, Films, CDs and DVDs.
One of the winners of the Scholarships for the Game Developers Conference for three consecutive years (GDC 2019-2021) awarded by the Latin American Federation of Video Game Developers, as well as winner of several films and videogame awards
“At Berklee, Manuel proved to me that his video game scoring skills are impressive.
I believe that he is one of the next generation of composers that will help shape our industry.”(Michael Sweet – Lead developer of the game scoring curriculum at Berklee College of Music)
Biography:
Born in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, started playing violin at the age of two with his first concert at the Municipal House of Culturs at the age of three (Photo).
For several years he played with local youth orchestral playing concerts in cities all around Bolivia, while at the same time taking music theory lessons at the Bellas Artes Institute.
In High-School, after playing with several rock bands in high-school, he eventually settled with Sugar Suicide, with which he won the Santa Cruz Rock festival and released a self-produced album under a new name (Galvorn).
He proceeded to relocate to Buenos Aires to study Audio and Music Production, during which time he also took several courses in topics like music for media, mastering, executive production…etc.
After his return to Bolivia he started working on the next album of Galvorn, this time to be recorded with a 60-piece youth symphonic orchestra. He was in charge of the composition and production and the music combined all of his previous influences in both orchestral and metal music, a combination that would go to define his career.
He then started producing and recording live albums, until in 2012 he was able to commision the construction of his new recording studio: Vox Populi Estudios, which would become the home of all of his production work in the years to come.
He also co-founded Vox Populi Records, a (now defunct) Bolivian record label and online music distribution service.
By that time he also started exploring music for media, with his first feature film being El Ascensor (2010). In the following years he started getting more into music for film, with the culmination being in 2016 when he won two awards for best audio (including an international one).
Also that year he started focusing more of his energy into interactive scoring for games, taking a 3 month online course on Berklee with straight A’s and a very inspiring recommendation from his instructor (at the top of the page).
On 2017 he made his two first game soundtracks for relatively small projects, while at the same time joining Calavera Studio as Audio Director in order to produce a longer term project that would work as their portfolio. This game was miniDoom 2, for which he composed over 40 minutes of interactive face-melting metal and spine-shivering metal music.
Without any marketing, the game got over 100k downloads, the trailer got over 120k views, and fans have uploaded close to 500 gameplay videos on youtube.
After releasing miniDoom 2 on 2018, he kept producing soundtracks for videogames and films while at the same time expanding his knowledge, but this time learning about game development, and started working full time on developing his own videogame.
On 2019 he won a scholarship to travel to the Game Developers Conference (San Francisco), an honor awarded by the Latinamerican Videogame Federation which he also recieved the two subsequent years, and with “Ajayu” by Calavera Studio they won the Emprende Games competition, the biggest of its kind in Bolivia.
The same year, the project “Sonidos del Oriente Boliviano” which he had been wanting to produce for over a decade finally saw the light after it was selected as one of the winners of the contestable fund “Intervenciones Urbanas” by the Bolivian Ministry of Cultures. The project consisted of registering in audio and video form the folkloric and orchestral groups from the Chiquitania region of Bolivia in their own towns and villages.
On 2020, even with a worldwide pandemic, his plans didn’t slow down one bit. He worked on several other games, including Techsorcist, also by Calavera Studio, with which they participated in the Game Jam Plus and were chosen as the best game of Latinamerica amongst 50+ games.
On 2021 he took the life-changing decision to relocate halfway around the world to Berlin, one of the biggest culture and media hubs in the world in order to be closer to the game and film industries and to be able to develop his career even further. He’s currently in the process of stablishing his new studio there while simultaneously working on several projects.