A graduate of Byron Bay’s SAE Creative Media Institute is amassing an impressive list of music department credits as part of Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control Productions team, including blockbusters Dune and Top Gun: Maverick.
Aldo Aréchar came to Australia from Mexico as a 19-year-old specifically to study at the Northern Rivers campus and complete his Bachelor of Music production.
Now 34, he has gone on to work with the likes of David Fleming, Henry Jackman, and Ludwig Göransson, as well as Zimmer.
Speaking to IF, Aréchar credited his time in Australia with helping him understand the social aspect of making music, having been encouraged to explore his passion from an early age, firstly through a Casio piano and later the drums.
“I used to spend a lot of time making music in my room but going to Australia really taught me how to enjoy people and be more open to new things,” he said.
“It was just more relaxed and I was able to enjoy music with people as part of the social scene.”
After graduating from SAE in 2009, Aréchar returned to his home country of Mexico, where he worked in post-production, while also composing video mapping shows for the Department of Tourism at locations including the Teotihuacan and Chichén Itzá Pyramids.
A dream of composing scores for feature films was taken forward in 2014 when he was invited to a week-long Mixing With Masters seminar at La Fabrique Studios in the South of France, during which participants get the opportunity to spend time with a guest speaker while sharing ideas about music engineering and production.
It was here Aréchar was introduced to 21-time Grammy award-winning sound engineer Al Schmitt, whose collaborators span Paul McCartney, Quincy Jones and Ray Charles.
The pair would form a bond, with Schmitt, who died last year at the age of 91, helping open up career opportunities in LA for the young composer.
“[Meeting Schmitt] really changed my perspective on my career because I was now talking with someone that was in contact with some of my heroes in Ray Charles and Paul McCartney, but he was just the kindest engineer and person,” Aréchar said.
“It really made me want to be more part of this world.”
Aréchar soon began making trips to LA from Mexico to build industry connections, visiting the city three times across the next two years for 4-5 days stints before making a permanent move in 2018.
A recommendation from Schmitt led to an introduction with Alan Meyerson, a mixer with more than 200 credits including the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, who would suggest taking up one of the positions on the Remote Control team.
Aréchar’s career has gone from strength to strength since, receiving a Grammy nomination as part of the team that worked on The Lion King, while also contributing to The Mandalorian, Hillbilly Elegy, Mank, and Wonder Woman 1984 in various music department roles, as well as the aforementioned Top Gun: Maverick and Dune.
He said there was a part of his journey that remained “very surreal”.
“I’m very lucky to have met all these people that liked me and trusted me enough to introduce very valuable connections,” he said.
“On the other hand, I worked so much to be in the position where I could be lucky enough but also be prepared because it’s really, really tough.
“The hours, stress, level of complexity, and responsibility is massive; I never worked like this in my life before.”
He said any SAE graduate wishing to follow his path should be careful about how they approach a potential career in Hollywood and make sure their technical skills are at the right level.
“Technology really is there to help you and if you know all the shortcuts and the tricks, it’s going to be easier when you are in a position to do bigger things,” he said.
“On the other side of it, I think before I met all of these famous engineers and was involved in these big projects I was romanticising too much because people tend to look at Hollywood as this unobtainable thing when it’s truly not.
“It’s just great people doing work like you and I think the more you like your own stuff, and the more you trust yourself, the bigger your chances are here.”