Coco           

Esin Aydingoz (Conductor) is an emerging conductor and composer working in a wide range of genres, including animation, silent films, documentaries, TV series, video games, and stage musicals. Originally from Turkey, Aydingoz moved to the United States to study at Berklee College of Music, where she recently served as the assistant chair of the Screen Scoring Department.

Aydingoz was nominated by the Society of Composers and Lyricists for the prestigious David Raksin Award for Emerging Talent for scoring the feature film Simchas and Sorrows, and her cello arrangement of “Paint It Black,” featured in Tim Burton’s Golden Globe–nominated Netflix series Wednesday, reached #1 on the Billboard Classical Charts, with over 17 million Spotify plays. Her latest documentary score for Black Barbie premiered at SXSW, and her music for The Monster of the Desert and Noor both won multiple awards, including Best Score, on the indie film circuit.

Aydingoz has conducted live-to-picture on tour with the Berklee Silent Film Orchestra, is the assistant music director of Disney’s a cappella singing sensation DCappella, and has created arrangements for multiple Disney recordings and performances. Aydingoz’s arrangements have been performed by Grammy Award–winning artists such as Lalo Schifrin, Booker T. Jones, and 2003 Eurovision winner Sertab Erener. As a mentor for Sound Thinking NYC, board member for the Society of Composers and Lyricists, and an active leader of the Alliance for Women Film Composers, Aydingoz is dedicated to making the world a better place through music.

The Orquesta Folclórica Nacional de México (Orchestra) of the Ballet Folclórico Nacional de México by Silvia Lozano is a musical group that stands out for its ability to fuse pre-Hispanic instruments with instruments from the colonial era, thus creating a unique and distinctive sound that evokes the rich history and culture of Mexico. This orchestra is made up of expert musicians who are highly trained in the interpretation of a wide variety of genres and styles of Mexican folk music, such as Mariachi music, Jarana music, Son music, and Huapango music, among others. In addition, their repertoire includes songs and instrumental pieces dating from pre-Hispanic and colonial times, which allows them to connect with the country’s historical and cultural roots. Among the instruments used by the Orquesta Folclórica Nacional de México are traditional pre-Hispanic drums, such as the Huehuetl and Tepobaztli, as well as flutes, ocarinas, and other pre-Hispanic wind instruments. They also use guitars, violins, double basses, and other stringed instruments that date back to colonial times, resulting in a unique and surprising sound combination.

Michael Giacchino (Composer) has credits that feature some of the most popular and acclaimed film projects in recent history, including The Incredibles, War for the Planet of the Apes, Ratatouille, Star Trek, Jurassic World, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Coco. Giacchino’s 2009 score for the Pixar hit Up earned him an Oscar®, a Golden Globe®, the BAFTA, the Broadcast Film Critics’ Choice Award, and two GRAMMY® Awards.

Giacchino studied filmmaking at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. After college, he landed a marketing job at Disney and began studies in music composition, first at Juilliard, and then at UCLA. He moved from marketing to producing in the newly formed Disney Interactive Division, where he had the opportunity to write music for video games. After scoring the temp track for the video game adaptation of The Lost World: Jurassic Park, he was hired by Steven Spielberg as the composer, making it the first PlayStation game to have a live orchestral score. Giacchino went on to score numerous video games, including Spielberg’s Medal of Honor series. Giacchino’s work in video games sparked the interest of J.J. Abrams, leading to scores for the hit television series Alias and Lost and the feature films Mission Impossible III, Star Trek, Super 8, and Star Trek into Darkness.

Giacchino was the musical director of the 81st Annual Academy Awards®. His music can be heard in concert halls internationally with all three Star Trek films, Ratatouille, Jurassic World, Up, and Coco being performed live-to-picture with a full orchestra. In June 2018, Giacchino premiered his first work for symphony orchestra, Voyage, commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of NASA. In July 2019, a third movement was added for the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Jojo Rabbit, the critically acclaimed film written and directed by Taika Waititi, earned Giacchino a BAFTA nomination. Giacchino serves as the Governor of the Music Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and sits on the advisory board of Education through Music Los Angeles.