Marcelo Zarvos

Composer Marcelo Zarvos was honored as an SCL Ambassador on December 11th, 2023 at the annual SCL New York Holiday Party at The Cutting Room.

Marcelo Zarvos has scored more than 60 films of varied genres and musical styles, and his “expert touch for layered stories and emotive undertones” has been recognized by his collaborators and peers. This caught the attention of award-winning director, Antoine Fuqua. Last year, he scored Fuqua’s poignant drama, Emancipation, starring Will Smith. Zarvos also scored Fuqua’s film Brooklyn’s Finest, the two-part HBO Sports documentary What’s My Name | Muhammad Ali,and The Guilty starring Jake Gyllenhaal.

An acclaimed composer and pianist, Zarvos is recognized for his trademark sound which has been described as “a seamless blend of classical, orchestral, rock, electronic and various ethnic elements,” creating uniquely affecting and emotionally charged music for film, TV, modern dance and the concert stage. The Brazilian-born Zarvos began his classical music education in his teens. He then left his home country to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), studying jazz under the legendary Charlie Haden and delving into rock and world music. Throughout his career, Zarvos has collaborated with celebrated filmmakers including Nicole Holofcener (Enough Said, Please Give, Amazon series One Mississippi, and The Land of Steady Habits), Barry Levinson (The Humbling, Emmy-nominated You Don’t Know Jack, Rock the Kasbah), Denzel Washington (A Journal for Jordan, the award-winning Fences), and Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Roger Ross Williams (the Amazon Original film Cassandro, which received critical acclaim at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival).

Recent releases for Zarvos include the Sundance favorite, Cassandro, about a homosexual amateur wrestler from El Paso, Texas who rises to international stardom when he creates the character Cassandro, the `Liberace of Lucha Libre’, Eva Longoria’s directorial debut, Flamin’ Hot, and Equalizer 3 directed by frequent collaborator Antoine Fuqua. Marcelo Zarvos also composed the score for Todd Haynes’ May December,which received critical acclaim at its Cannes Film Festival Premiere. The drama follows a married couple that, twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance, buckles under the pressure when a Hollywood actress meets them to do research for a film about their past, and will be released domestically in theaters Nov. 17 and on Netflix Dec. 1.