INTERVIEW: Cheche Alara ‘arranges’ success on his own terms
Cheche Alara, originally from Buenos Aires, is one of the most in-demand musicians and composers in the business. He helped produce Natalia Lafourcade’s recent album, Musas, which won two Latin Grammy Awards, and his musical footprint can be experienced on several TV shows and Netflix specials, including the recent Barbra Streisand documentary, The Music … The Mem’ries … The Magic!
Alara has many job titles and ambitions for his professional lif. He counts himself a musician, music director, music producer, arranger and composer. In other words, he’s a busy man, and 2018 will continue his dominance over the scoring/producing realm.
Recently, Hollywood Soapbox spoke with Alara, a graduate of Berklee College of Music and University of Southern California. Here’s what he had to say:
On his plans for 2018 …
“Well, as far as 2018, there’s a lot of projects that I already have right now for 2018, mostly scoring for TV shows and Netflix. That’s an area that I’m expanding into. What I do, there’s a lot of unexpected planning. You cannot really plan ahead. … Besides the Netflix and the other TV shows that I’m scoring, there’s a couple of things brewing, but bottom line, I hope to have more chances to do good music. I know that it sounds cliche, but that’s really what I’m trying to aim to do, to work with good artists and produce some good albums and keep working on film and TV, which is what I love.”
On the art of collaboration …
“The ideal artist will be somebody who is willing to take a lot of risks and to let the collaboration take place, so it’s basically not me doing what they would like to do, or them doing what I would like to do. But hopefully we find a new common ground that is unique to the project. If the conditions are there, if that can happen, that is ideal, and that is where the magic happens. I step out of my comfort zone and so does the artist, and we find new ground. We make some artistic new content, and that’s what I strive for.”
On working with Lafourcade on Musas …
“Natalia is a perfect example of someone who is willing to find that new common ground for a project. She knows very well what she wants, and she’s very knowledgeable. And at the same time, she’s really good at bringing people — fortunately for me, people like me — to help her find musings that she would have not thought about necessarily by herself. And that’s where the sparks start flying, and you get something that is new, that is new for her as an artist and where I can put my stamp as a producer, but respecting who she is and what she’s done so far. She’s quite amazing. She’s an essential person in the Latin music world, and I feel very fortunate to have worked with her.”
On collaborating with an artist more than once …
“Sometimes it’s also good to take a step back and not necessarily have that happen. With Natalia’s case, in particular, we did two albums. It’s basically one body of work that is divided into two albums, so we had Musas. And we have Volume II coming up in a few weeks actually, so that happened naturally in this case. … If we’re not talking about a double album, and you do one project with one artist, there’s always that mutual interest of, like, we should do something else. But then again, life happens, and having a second project or a follow-up project back to back might be the perfect decision. Or it might be good for both the artist and/or the producer to take a step back and let something else happen in the middle before you reacquaint each other to work together on something else. I guess it depends. I guess the short answer is it depends. … It could also be wise to take a break and then come back.”
On his first fascination with music …
“I played piano when I was 4 back in Buenos Aires where I grew up, and it’s a journey. All of a sudden, I am where I am today, and there’s a lot of things that happened in the way. But music is the common thread of my life. It’s what I’ve been doing pretty much since I remember and in different capacities. I used to play. I became eventually a professional musician besides being a student. I make my living performing as a pianist, as a keyboard player. Eventually I became a musical director, a writer, a conductor. … Now I consider myself a producer and a composer mostly, but I still perform as a keyboard player. And I love it. It keeps me on my toes, and it’s something that I love. It’s very close to my heart, and I want to keep doing it as much as possible, as much as my production and composing schedule allows. I love to play. That’s how I started, and it’s always going to be my first love, to perform.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Click here for more information on Cheche Alara.
