Anatomy of a Cue #5: Federico Solazzo - It’s Nice in Here
In this 5th episode, Italian-born, Netherlands-based composer Federico Solazzo reveals his process for scoring the animation short It’s Nice In Here. Breaking away from his usual orchestral approach, for this Buma Award-winning score he made extensive use of tape loops, synths, sound modulation and deliberately used different tunings throughout the score.
Federico Solazzo - Music composer for film, TV and games
Experienced, fast, reliable, hard-working and smile-on-guy, Federico Solazzo is an Italian music composer for film, TV and games based in The Netherlands.
Federico's recent work includes the animation film It's nice in here (95th Academy Awards Shortlisted and best original composition Buma Music in Media Award 2023), the feature film De Oost (The East, Amazon Original), the documentary Il cercatore d'infinito (LTG award at the 77º Venice Film Festival), and the TV series Mocro Maffia (Golden Calf winner). In the advertisement world, Federico is working with several US / UK / NL based agencies, with his bespoke music airing on worldwide TV campaigns for brands such as Disney, Samsung, Heineken and Coca-Cola. Since 2019 Federico has collaborated with the great composer René Merkelbach (Efteling) on several projects, working on international TV series, theater shows and immersive projects with the privilege of recording with the fantastic players of the Metropole Orkest.
Aside from commissioned work, in 2021 he started TIDES, his cinematic solo project: an open music diary featuring Kiev Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, Budapest Film Orchestra, Prague Metropolitan Orchestra and Dutch String Collective. On the rhythmic lollipop side of things, he's collaborating with the great Amsterdam producer Glimlip with the alias Freddie Kane.
After extensive classical and jazz training in Italy, he studied at the Institute of Sonology (Royal Conservatory of The Hague, NL). Afterwards, he studied orchestration with Los Angeles composer and conductor Charles Fernandez (Disney, Dreamworks) and received a Master’s degree in Professional Media Composition with distinction from the University of Chichester (UK).
Federico developed strong teamwork and problem-solving skills during a decade-long career as musical director, arranger, producer, mixer and keyboard player. He also worked as a synth programmer for world-class companies such as Nord Keyboards (Stockholm, S) and NonLinear Labs (Berlin, D) and performed in prestigious venues such as San Siro stadium (Milan, IT), Blue Note jazz club (Milan, IT), SXSW 2016 (Austin, US), Ushuaia (Ibiza, ES) and 2008 Olympic Games (Beijing, CN).
It’s Nice in Here
Original Motion Picture Score
listen on spotify
Composing media music is about making things. In the Anatomy of a Cue series, composers show how they do it. Focusing on just one piece (the cue) these in-depth videos dissect the music in detail: what's in there? Where did it come from? What was the creative process like - and what's that weird sound in the background?
It’s Nice In Here (animated short)
Produced by Valk Productions
Written and directed by Robert-Jonathan Koeyers
Original music by Federico Solazzo
Anatomy of a Cue
Created by: Federico Solazzo
Camera: Gianluca Cálo
Editing: Sebastiaan Donders
Producer: Ivo Witteveen
