Alvaro Balvin Benavides was born in Lima, Peru. He started playing guitar at a young age and quickly fell in love with music. Growing up, he always spent his weekends watching at least three movies with his family, which is how he started to love the concept of storytelling. Music and movies were always part of his childhood and at an early age he became passionate about both of them. That is when he decided to pursue a career in film music composition, which combined both of his passions.

Alvaro did his Bachelor’s Degree at Berklee College of Music majoring in Film Scoring. After graduating, he went back to Peru to work and pursue a career as a film composer. He spent 5 years working in the Peruvian film industry as well as teaching part time as a professor at a Music University, Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas UPC, where he taught composition, arranging and music analysis classes. After working for 6 years in Peru he decided to take his career a step further and was accepted in the best scoring graduate program at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California, where he pursued his Master’s in Music in Screen Scoring.

He has worked with directors and producers from many different parts of the globe, including USA, Peru, Colombia, China, India, Dominican Republic, amongst other. Collaborating with such diverse directors and producers has enriched his already versatile writing, as Alvaro considers cross-collaborations to be an amazing way to explore different cultures and musical styles from all over the world.

His musical style is defined by the use of the symphonic orchestra, synthesizers and ethnic instruments. His love for these three musical elements brings a unique style that fits modern film scoring. He believes that every movie should have its own unique character and sound, its own unique ‘orchestra’ or group of instruments, because every movie tells a different story and is made by people with different backgrounds. If it is a melodically driven score, a rhythmic heavy score, an electronic one, or an ambient score, every film score should have its own unique voice, which is the main idea on every score he has composed.