Featuring Original Music Composed By Carlos José Alvarez
and Songs Performed by Mykia Jovan
Varèse Sarabande will release the OF MIND AND MUSIC – Original Soundtrack digitally on May 6, 2016. The album features the original music composed by Carlos José Alvarez (EXPOSED, THE QUIET HOUR), with songs (“Eye on the Sparrow”, “Avalon”, “Make Me A Pallet”, “Basin Street Blues’, “After You’ve Gone”) performed by Mykia Jovan and the classic hymn “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” performed by Bill Cobbs.
“Our main character Una Vida is a street musician with a mysterious past who suffers from Alzheimer’s and dementia,” said composer Alvarez. “I think the most challenging aspect of the score were the moments when she would go adrift and lose herself.”
OF MIND AND MUSIC is a story about a beautiful street musician suffering from memory loss and a disheartened neuroscientist intent on helping her, bringing together the city of New Orleans and the jazz that made it famous.
“Una Vida’s appearances are very intense moments in the film. The score needed to pull us into her mind and somehow help us to experience that shift happening,” Alvarez described. “We can’t pretend to know what that must be like and how scary that must be, but the director Richie Adams was very clear on how he wanted to feel experiencing those moments with her. He is a director who is very in tune with his gut and knows when something is working for him.”
Carlos José Alvarez is a Cuban-American composer, arranger, songwriter and producer known for his moody, emotional scores. The emerging composer has also contributed music to numerous feature films including Academy and Golden Globe Award-winning drama Still Alice and The Last of Robin Hood. Some of his other scores include sci-fi thriller The Quiet Hour, DEADLINE (starring Brittany Murphy and Thora Birch) and the critically acclaimed documentary Cubamerican. In addition, Carlos composed the logo music for TSG ENTERTAINMENT and his collaborations as an arranger and songwriter with singing legend Ana Gabriel, as well as Broadway leading ladies Janet Dacal and Ana Villafañe.
A South Florida native, his formal musical training began at age 12 and he was exposed to a spectrum of music, ranging from the Cuban masters to the great symphonies. He attended Florida State University as well as the prestigious Berklee College of Music, where he studied composition and film scoring. His music was recently heard in the film EXPOSED. Alvarez currently resides in Los Angeles.
Una Vida Productions presents OF MIND AND MUSIC currently available on VOD, Amazon, and iTunes. Varèse Sarabande will release the OF MIND AND MUSIC – Original Soundtrack digitally on May 6, 2016.