Guitarist, Composer and Educator

Carlos’ New Book Designing Music for Emotion is a wonderful thesaurus of musical techniques to elicit the ultimate emotional responses to creating or listening to music.

— Jay Chattaway, Emmy Award-winning composer (Star Trek TV Series)

​

Carlos Amador, a Spanish-born guitarist, composer, and music educator, is deeply passionate about film music and its ability to evoke powerful emotions. Currently pursuing a BA in Music with the Open College of the Arts, Carlos brings a unique analytical perspective to his compositions, shaped by his PhD in chemical engineering.

​

His book, Designing Music for Emotion, has been praised as a "wonderful thesaurus of musical techniques" by Emmy-winning composer Jay Chattaway. The book equips film and media composers with actionable tools to craft emotionally evocative music and helps music enthusiasts better understand how sound can stir emotions such as joy, sorrow, and awe.

​

Carlos’s recent works include the orchestral scores for Eyes of Love and Sintel Rescore. Eyes of Love, composed for Sandhya Karamat Barlaas’s horror story, explores methods to evoke uncertainty and surprise in Hollywood-style orchestral music, avoiding the traditional auxiliary instruments of the genre. Similarly, Sintel Rescore, for the open-source fantasy film Sintel, showcases his ability to magnify emotional impact through orchestral techniques grounded in psychological, evolutionary, and associative principles.

​

With a strong foundation in classical music, Carlos has achieved all ABRSM grades (1–8) in classical guitar. His work seamlessly blends academic rigor with emotional depth, positioning him as a sought-after voice in emotional music composition and film scoring.

​

In addition to his work in advancing the art of storytelling through sound, Carlos enjoys staying active with sports like running, boxing, and tennis, as well as traveling and immersing himself in comedy during his spare time.

​

​