Roque Baños


Roque Baños López is a Spanish music composer whose place of birth is Jumilla, a municipality in the Spanish region of Murcia. Baños graduated from Boston's Berklee College of Music in 1995 and has since scored both Spanish and English-language films. He has received numerous awards for his compositional work, including the Spanish Goya Award for Best Original Score in both 2008 and 2009.

Education

Baños has been involved in music his whole life, his father being a saxophonist, and he himself completed a basic saxophone degree at the Upper Music Conservatory of Murcia. In 1986, Baños moved to Madrid where he attended the Real Conservatorio Superior and continued his musical studies, obtaining professional degrees in the saxophone, piano, harmony, counterpoint, composition, instrumentation and conducting. In 1993 he received a grant from the Ministry of Culture to study at the prestigious Berklee College of Music, and it was as a student at Berklee that he would develop his aspirations to compose film scores and jazz.

Professional career

Although Baños initially developed his skills as a concert musician, he soon decided to focus on composition. His approach to film music is due to his education at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA. There, he studied music composition with David Spear and orchestral direction with Gregory Fridge, specializing in composition for film scores and jazz, winning several awards, among them the Robert Share Award for showing the highest dramatic level in the area of film score. He graduated with Summa Cum Laude in the branches of film score and jazz composition.
Back in Spain, after a brief period in the short film scene, he began to compose for the big screen thanks to actor Gabino Diego. Since then he has composed many works along with fellow Spanish composer Alberto Iglesias.
In 2008, he received the Goya Award for Best Original Score for the soundtrack of Las 13 rosas.
He scored an American film for the first time with the 2013 horror film Evil Dead.

Musical influences

His music is notable for a great jazz influence, as showed in the majority of his works and especially in El robo más grande jamás contado.

Filmography

English language
YearTitleDirectorNotes
2000Sexy BeastJonathan Glazer
2004The MachinistBrad Anderson
2008The Oxford MurdersÁlex de la Iglesia
2013Evil DeadFede ÁlvarezIFMCA Award for Best Original Score for a Fantasy/Science Fiction/Horror Film
Nominated — IFMCA Award for Film Score of the Year
Nominated — Fright Meter Award for Best Score
2013OldboySpike Lee
2015RegressionAlejandro Amenábar
2015In the Heart of the SeaRon Howard
2016RisenKevin Reynolds
2016Don't BreatheFede Álvarez
2018The CommuterJaume Collet-Serra
2018The Miracle SeasonSean McNamara
2018The Man Who Killed Don QuixoteTerry GilliamNominated — Goya Award for Best Original Song
2018The Girl in the Spider's WebFede Álvarez
TBALarryJacob Chase

Spanish language