#6 - A Conversation with Bryan Senti
Introduction
This interview is part of The Sonic Atelier – Conversations with Contemporary Composers and Producers, a long-term project dedicated to exploring the evolving role of the composer in the twenty-first century. The series investigates how today’s creators inhabit hybrid identities at the intersection of composition, production, and performance, and how their artistic practices intertwine with technology, aesthetics, and the changing dynamics of the music industry.
In this conversation we meet Bryan Senti, American composer, violinist, and producer, whose work moves fluidly between classical composition, film scoring, and experimental production. A classically trained musician with deep roots in both Latin American and impressionistic traditions, Senti has forged a personal sonic language that merges acoustic intimacy with cinematic scope.
Over the course of the interview, Senti reflects on the hybrid craft of composing, producing, and performing in the digital age, on the influence of figures such as Jóhann Jóhannsson, Nils Frahm, and Nino Rota, and on how technologies like the DAW and Dolby Atmos have reshaped his compositional imagination. He also discusses the dialogue between notation and sound, the role of performance in reclaiming human presence within the algorithmic landscape, and the importance of maintaining artistic identity beyond the demands of film and streaming culture.
His reflections reveal the mindset of a composer who views sound as both architecture and emotion, someone who treats production as composition, and who seeks, through every note, to bridge the gap between human intimacy and technological possibility.
Date of interview: 28 July 2025
Question: These days, many composers combine writing, performing, and producing into one unified process. Do you see yourself as part of this hybrid approach? How do these roles come together in your music?
Bryan Senti: Yes, I suppose I do. In a way, I feel that I somewhat fell into it. My background is in classical composition, so I still tend to approach my work primarily from that perspective, at least in my music at the moment.
But in order to convey the interpretation of my pieces in a way that made sense to me compositionally, I realized I needed to develop a particular perspective on the instrument itself. In my work, I try to combine Latin American influences with filmic ones, since I also come from a background in film composition, and Jóhann Jóhannsson has been a major inspiration in that regard.
Giving the instrument a specific character and perspective became crucial. Coming from the world of film, I’ve always been fascinated by how people like Jóhann, Nils Frahm, or Dustin O’Halloran approached sound.
From a production standpoint, I think we owe a lot to Jóhann, who broke down a barrier that really needed to fall, redefining where classical music could go. Before that, it was often recorded through a Decca tree, with distance, as if you were sitting in a concert hall. There was always this emotional space between the listener and the music. But by close-miking instruments, running them through tape, effects, delays, or mixing them in unconventional ways, you could access entirely new expressive territories.
For me, that felt like the natural next step in what classical music could become.
That said, I sometimes find the term neoclassical problematic. If “neo” means “new,” then perhaps it implies escaping a certain historical period. And yes, at times that can describe artists like Dustin or Jóhann, who draw upon early music or Baroque structures. But the music we make can also be experimental, even abrasive or dissonant, closer to the expressionism of the 1950s or 1960s. So, personally, I prefer the term post-classical.
Question: Which composers, musical currents, or aesthetic legacies have shaped you most deeply? What styles have left a lasting mark on how you think about music?
Bryan Senti: I think, for my specific music, the impressionistic period has been especially important, particularly the great French composers like Ravel and Debussy, and later figures such as Messiaen. I’d also include someone like the Japanese composer Tōru Takemitsu, whose work feels like a continuation of that lineage.
Beyond that, Latin American music has always been a central influence for me, everything from traditional Andean and indigenous music to the songs of Julio Jaramillo, Alfredo Zitarossa, or Atahualpa Yupanqui. I’m deeply drawn to the folk traditions of Latin America, their rhythmic vitality, and the emotional directness they carry.
There’s also a point of connection between these roots and composers like Jóhann Jóhannsson, who found ways to modernize acoustic music through experimental production techniques. I feel very aligned with that approach. Film music has played a role too, artists like Trent Reznor, Jóhann, or even Hildur Guðnadóttir, who are my contemporaries, have had a profound impact on how I think about sound.
And of course, Bach. If you play the violin, it’s impossible not to be influenced by Bach on some level. His sense of structure and emotional clarity remains timeless — and I think that impressionistic atmosphere you can hear in some of my works, like Manu, ultimately traces back to all these intertwined influences.
Question: When composing for images, do you use the same creative approach you would in your non-film music? Has this experience influenced your compositional workflow or the way you think about sound and form?
Bryan Senti: I wouldn’t say I’ve yet had the opportunity to fully integrate my own compositional voice into film music. Most of my work so far has been on the more commercial side of the industry. With the exception of projects like Save Me for the BBC, I’ve mostly been responding to what’s on screen, writing music that supports the narrative and fits the emotional tone of the film or series.
That said, I really enjoy it. Working in film and television gives me a chance to experiment with different styles, and to learn new production and recording techniques, as well as new musical idioms. For example, in Mood the sound world was heavily influenced by hip-hop, The Weeknd, and contemporary pop. On Cowboy Cartel, by contrast, the aesthetic drew on films like Sicario and artists such as Los Hermanos Gutiérrez. Each project opens up a new musical landscape to explore, and I find that incredibly stimulating.
In terms of workflow, this experience has also changed the way I approach composition itself. When I started working on Manu and developing my own projects, I realized that even though I went to classical music school and I’m very comfortable using notation software like Sibelius, I no longer feel the need to begin there. Writing directly into Sibelius feels too linear now, it forces a certain kind of compositional structure.
When I was studying in the early 2000s, programs like Finale and Sibelius were becoming central to music education, especially in the northeastern United States. Much of the music being produced there was highly process-oriented, often referencing composers like Philip Glass and Steve Reich, everything was measured, metered, systematized. Even when it wasn’t, it still operated within a very specific compositional framework imposed by the software itself.
You open a new bar, four-four, three-four, twelve-eight, six-eight, and you’re automatically forced into a certain rhythmic grid. It becomes mechanical, and that shapes the way you write. It’s not that this approach doesn’t make sense for certain musical contexts, but if you want to explore freer forms, rubato, out-of-time phrasing, or temporal fluidity, those programs work against you.
Then, of course, you can move toward graphic or aleatoric notation, but that too imposes its own language, often leaving interpretation entirely to the performer. For me, the challenge has always been to find a middle ground, a way to write something that might sound like Atahualpa Yupanqui or Buena Vista Social Club, music that lives in that in-between space.
That’s where the influence of film music and even jazz comes in. Recording one instrument at a time, capturing each performance as a unique moment, that changes everything. Every take is different; every interpretation becomes part of the composition itself. It forces you to become both the composer and the interpreter of your own music, shaping the sound through performance and microphone placement.
In the end, it frees you from the confines of the written score, the partitura, and opens up a more organic, living approach to composition.
Question: In your creative process, does the DAW serve as your primary compositional space or do you mainly use it as a later stage for developing and refining your ideas?
Bryan Senti: In the last several years, the DAW has really become my main space for creative experimentation. I’ve more or less replaced Sibelius or Finale with Logic and now compose directly within that environment. For me, it’s become an all-inclusive space where writing, producing, and arranging all happen simultaneously.
A few years ago, I played a series of shows with Dustin O’Halloran, I was opening for him, and for those performances I completely reconfigured my music into jazz-inspired arrangements, leaving space for improvisation. That experience made me realize how fluid the relationship between composition and performance can be when you’re not bound to a score.
So yes, the DAW has absolutely become my main creative environment. It’s where ideas are born, shaped, and refined, rather than just a place to finalize them. It allows me to think in real time, to work directly with sound and structure, and to let the music evolve in a way that feels spontaneous and alive.
Question: Do you ever think in visual or synesthetic terms, even when you’re not composing for film? If so, how do visuals influence your musical decisions?
Bryan Senti: Definitely. In some cases, I think programmatically, as if the music itself carries its own narrative. That might be a result of having worked in film and television for a long time, there’s always an underlying sense of story, even when there’s no image attached.
At other times, it’s more about colour. Especially in more ambient sections of music, I often find myself associating sounds with hues, this part might feel blue, that one greener, another slightly warmer or brighter. On my upcoming record there’s a track called Tersura, which means “smoothness.” It was inspired by colour field paintings: from afar they might resemble an image of the ocean, but up close they’re just layers of subtle gradation, one line slightly more blue, another more green, another less saturated. I tried to translate that same painterly sensibility into sound.
So yes, I do think in synesthetic ways, or in what you could call design-based systems, whether narrative, rhythmic, or visual. These frameworks help me decide when something feels complete or still in progress. Music is so abstract that arriving at a sense of resolution can happen through many different cues. Sometimes it’s not about reaching three and a half minutes on the timeline, but rather about a shift in colour or energy, when something that felt green turns purple, then returns to green again. That’s when I know the piece has found its balance.
Question: Imagine creating a soundscape for a scene where a character walks slowly across a silent, snowy landscape. The goal is to amplify feelings of isolation and suspended time. How would you begin, would you use acoustic instruments, electronic elements, sound manipulation, or perhaps a particular kind of notation? What would be your first creative gesture?
Bryan Senti: That’s an interesting image. I suppose it would depend on the specific nature of the landscape, how still, how vast, how intimate it feels. One possible approach would be to start by “painting” the sound of the wind or the falling snow, almost as a form of sound design. I imagine something in a medium-to-high register, because snow tends to have a crystalline quality; it’s light, brittle, and bright.
Another approach could be to reference the austerity of winter, maybe even something reminiscent of Vivaldi’s Winter, using more Baroque instrumentation but treated in a minimal, textural way. That sense of restraint could really serve the image of someone walking slowly through snow, lonely, suspended, but moving forward.
As for the sound design itself, I think of dryness: the crunch of footsteps in the snow, the distant wind brushing against trees, or the faint movement of frozen branches. All of these details can become musical materials, tiny gestures that convey fragility and space.
It could go in many directions, really. Sometimes the right sound emerges from imagining not just the landscape itself, but the temperature of the air, the resistance of the body moving through it, the way silence becomes part of the rhythm. It would all depend on the day, and on the emotional tone that needs to be revealed through sound.
Question: Do you consider mixing and timbral choices part of composition, perhaps even a form of sound design, or more as a separate phase that follows writing?
Bryan Senti: I think mixing is very much like arranging. It’s about deciding what sits in the foreground, what remains in the mid-ground, and what stays in the background. Even the use of reverb functions like orchestration, you’re placing instruments in a kind of spatial architecture.
Applying effects can also feel like orchestrating. Distorting or EQing a sound aggressively can almost create a new instrument altogether, reshaping its identity and its role in the texture. In that sense, mixing becomes an extension of the compositional process rather than something that comes after it.
Sound design, on the other hand, often follows composition, but not always. It depends on how abstract the musical idea is. Some pieces are primarily about notes, melody, and harmony; others are about sound itself, its texture, its weight, its temperature. I work in both ways. Most of the time it’s about the notes, but sometimes it’s entirely about this abstract sense of sound, where design and composition merge.
That’s why I often say that production is the fourth wall of composition. It’s another dimension, a space where writing can evolve beyond the limits of traditional acoustic music. It’s what modernizes composition today.
Question: I’ve been reflecting on the idea of what I call, for now, an Expanded Score, a model that treats production decisions such as timbre, spatialization, and processing as structural and creative elements rather than post-production details. Do you think it’s possible or useful to have a system that integrates these layers organically? Have you ever tried capturing such aspects through non-traditional notation, or do you rely mainly on memory and listening during your creative process?
Bryan Senti: That’s a fascinating idea. When I was working on Manu and on my most recent record, I didn’t write anything down, but I was still thinking about the music compositionally, listening deeply, analyzing internally, and mentally organizing the structure. So even without a physical score, the process remained very much “composerly.”
After finishing Manu, I actually hired a doctoral student from USC to transcribe the entire record. It turned out to be incredibly expensive, and chaotic. The project revealed just how complex it is to reverse-engineer something created in a DAW back into notation. When you’re composing digitally, you’re not limited by the constraints of instrumentation: you can write for eight violas, one violin, ten basses, whatever you want. It’s liberating. But if you try to bring it back into the physical world of parts and performers, you immediately confront the practical boundaries of traditional ensembles, quartets, quintets, orchestras, and so on.
As for experimental notation, I have mixed feelings. I love the concept, but in practice it often places the idea of the music before its sound. That can be beautiful, of course, but it can also lead to chaos in performance. Over time, a shared performance practice might emerge, like how we now approach Mozart or Bach, but at first, it’s open to wildly different interpretations.
There’s also a fundamental dilemma between the live and recorded contexts. Graphic or open notation works wonderfully in performance, where you can see musicians making real-time decisions. But in recording, where the goal is to preserve a definitive version, you want the notes, sounds, and timing to be the most intentional, refined realization possible. In that medium, the freedom of graphic notation often gives way to precision.
Still, I agree that these processes are deeply artisanal. Even in electronic or digital composition, there’s craftsmanship, each step, each layer, each sonic choice reflects artistic intention. I think it’s important to recognize that, especially today, when we’re constantly surrounded by new tools, instruments, and technologies.
What you’re describing, a kind of mapping of the compositional ecosystem, could be extremely useful, not only for composers and researchers but also as a shared language between collaborators: producers, engineers, directors. It helps everyone involved understand the flow and logic behind a piece.
And yes, I think you’re right: every element in a composition, even the most abstract or technical one, has a narrative dimension. Stockhausen sought to escape traditional narrativity, but I agree with your point, every parameter we manipulate still tells a story. Recognizing that hidden narrativity could be a powerful pedagogical and artistic tool. It allows us to reveal how every sonic choice, every gesture, every texture, carries meaning and emotion, forming its own kind of musical narrative.
Question: There’s clearly been a shift in how we experience music spatially. Have you started designing music with a specific space in mind from the very beginning, especially when working in immersive formats like Dolby Atmos?
Bryan Senti: With my latest record, yes. I knew from the start that it would be mixed in Atmos, simply because there were so many layers and instrumental parts that it offered a great opportunity to explore spatial arrangement creatively. I wouldn’t say I composed inside an Atmos system, during the writing phase I still imagined it rather than hearing it, but I worked closely with Francesco Donadello on the mix, keeping that spatial perspective in mind.
One of the tracks, for instance, features an opera singer, and I liked the idea of her voice emerging from a perfectly centered point in the sound sphere, with the music surrounding her in a circular, almost architectural way. For me, Atmos opens up new possibilities for arrangement, less in terms of orchestration, more in terms of perspective. You can suddenly think about sound as something that breathes in three dimensions.
That said, not every piece of music needs Atmos. Some works truly benefit from it, others don’t. It’s an expansion of the palette, not a universal rule. For this particular record, though, I do think the Atmos version sounds better, it carries more detail and depth.
The roots of this way of thinking actually go back to classical music. Even in the Renaissance and Baroque periods, composers experimented with spatial arrangements, placing choirs in galleries, trumpets behind the altar, or organs at the back of the church. Think of Gabrieli in Venice or Handel’s Messiah, the sound surrounding the listener, the voices and instruments placed in different positions to create perspective. In a way, Atmos is just the technological continuation of that idea.
But, like the church in those centuries, it’s also a privilege: not everyone can experience Atmos sound systems today, just as only a few could hear grand sacred music in its full spatial form back then. The comparison isn’t perfect, but it’s meaningful.
Question: Do you see Atmos, or immersive formats in general, as sound that can be seen, or rather as images that can be heard?
Bryan Senti: I like that way of putting it. It’s a bit like painting with sound. Even when I think back to Manu, which was also mixed in Atmos, I felt I was shaping a sonic image rather than simply a musical structure. There’s a visual logic in how the layers move, how textures interact.
It’s immersive, yes, but also perspectival: even without Atmos, I tend to think of sound in terms of depth, distance, and direction. The format just enhances what’s already there.
Question: Earlier, you mentioned how tools like Sibelius or Finale can sometimes feel too mechanical. Do you think digital tools, when used without research or reflection, risk flattening creativity in a similar way?
Bryan Senti: Absolutely. Any tool, notation software, DAW, or even a synth, can become mechanical if it’s used passively. What matters is the intention behind it. Tools should extend imagination, not limit it. When we stop exploring, when we rely on presets or default workflows, creativity becomes predictable.
That’s why I think it’s important to maintain a sense of discovery in every stage of the process—whether you’re writing, producing, or mixing. The technology is there to serve the sound, not to define it.
Question: When you’re working on a film, do you like to be involved early in the process, or is that not essential for you?
Bryan Senti: I generally prefer being involved early on, it’s always beautiful when that happens, but it doesn’t always work out that way. It really depends on the kind of project.
In more artistic films, where the director has full creative control over the aesthetic and the pacing, early collaboration can be incredibly rewarding. You can help shape the atmosphere and emotional direction from the start, almost as part of the film’s DNA.
But with more commercial productions, things tend to be different. When the director doesn’t have complete authority over the final vision, when decisions are influenced by producers, studios, or marketing teams, it’s often better to wait until final cut. At that stage, you know exactly what the film is going to be, and you can compose more precisely to its rhythm, tone, and emotional landscape.
Question: When you work with someone like Francesco Donadello, or with a producer or engineer in general, how do you communicate subtle emotional qualities such as fragility, darkness, or texture? Have you developed ways to translate those ideas into technical language, or do you rely more on the producer’s intuition to find the right sound?
Bryan Senti: It really depends on the person you’re working with. Someone like Donadello is a master, and when you have deep creative conversations with him, he develops a kind of intuitive understanding of your music, one that can lead to beautiful surprises. He might take the sound somewhere you hadn’t imagined, and that’s what makes collaboration exciting.
That said, it still requires dialogue. It helps tremendously if both people share a sensitivity to art, film, or literature, because when we talk about music, especially in emotional or abstract terms, we often need other languages to describe what we’re feeling. You might say a piece feels complete because it moved from blue to green and back again, or because it reminds you of Jóhann’s Orphée, or even because it evokes a passage from Dante’s Inferno. Everything is connected through tension and release, and the more references you have, the richer the conversation becomes.
When you’re working with a mixer, what really matters is finding someone you can trust and speak with on that deeper, creative level. Otherwise, you end up directing every technical move, “make this 2 dB louder,” “this should be drier,” “this needs more reverb”, which can work, of course, but it turns the process into something purely mechanical. The best collaborations are the ones where the conversation goes beyond the technical, where you’re both shaping a piece of art rather than just adjusting its parameters.
Question: Do you have any favorite film composers from the past?
Bryan Senti: I’m quite old school in that sense. My favorite composer is probably Nino Rota, The Godfather, Amarcord… those scores are just timeless. They’re beautiful pieces of music that live on their own, yet they remain in perfect dialogue with the films.
What I love about that era is that the music wasn’t merely supporting the picture; it was an equal narrative voice. Today, film music has become much more technically advanced, but often we composers find ourselves in a subservient role, simply reinforcing what’s already on screen rather than shaping its emotional dimension. There are, of course, exceptions, but that balance has shifted.
That said, there’s also a lot of fascinating work being done in modern film scoring, especially when the techniques and aesthetics of film music spill over into what we now call post-classical composition. Jóhann Jóhannsson is the perfect example.
Most people know him through his scores, Sicario, The Theory of Everything, Arrival, but I actually prefer his non-film work, like Orphée or Englabörn. For me, those albums transcend the screen. They were born from his experience as a film composer, yet they exist as autonomous works of art.
Arrival, perhaps, is the most successful fusion of the two worlds, it carries the emotional discipline of a great score, but also the depth and abstraction of his personal music. That’s what I find most inspiring: when film music becomes not just functional, but poetic, when it belongs equally to the cinema and to the listener’s inner world.
Question: What do you think film directors look for in music today? Has their relationship with composers changed over time?
Bryan Senti: I think that today, film scoring is often about working within the director’s design system. Music plays a more supportive role than it once did. Many contemporary films are either very postmodern, combining multiple aesthetics and artistic influences, or highly commercial. In both cases, directors tend to look for an overall tone, a cohesive atmosphere, rather than a musical voice that stands out independently.
If you look back at Nino Rota’s work, The Godfather, Amarcord, those scores were almost operatic. The music had its own life; it could breathe, unfold, and announce itself. It wasn’t just serving the picture but contributing to an overall artistic experience. That kind of dialogue between image and sound is much rarer today.
It’s not that contemporary film is worse, it’s just different. Modern cinema often searches for a tonal middle ground, a balance between diverse artistic elements, and that leaves less space for music to assert itself as an autonomous force.
But that’s precisely why I think it’s vital for composers to cultivate their own musical identities outside of film and television. If your entire artistic language is built around serving the picture, you risk losing that deeper, personal foundation, the kind of music that truly belongs to you.
Question: So you maintain an active creative position even when scoring for film?
Bryan Senti: Absolutely. If you want to have a voice, you need to have your own personal music. That’s where your identity as a composer lives, and it’s what allows you to bring something meaningful to a film.
Question: Today’s music industry is increasingly shaped by streaming platforms, algorithms, and fragmented listening habits. One might even talk about “algorithmic music”, not in a technical sense, but in the way music adapts to data-driven modes of distribution and consumption. Do you confront these logics in your own work? How do you think streaming, instant consumption, and algorithmic indexing affect, or perhaps limit, the space for musical research and experimentation?
Bryan Senti: From a research perspective, it’s incredible, you have access to music from all over the world. But for composers, I think it’s problematic. Streaming and playlist culture encourage a kind of dumbing down of music, not necessarily artistically, but structurally. You start composing with playlists in mind, thinking about what works algorithmically.
This environment pushes people toward simpler, more predictable forms, because they perform better in that system. And then, of course, those playlists are increasingly filled with AI-generated music, which reinforces the cycle. It’s not all bad, streaming does offer visibility and connection, but the whole system reflects, in a way, what’s wrong with society at large: it depends on who controls the platform, and what their values are.
If playlists were curated by real humans, with aesthetic and cultural intention, it would be different. But as it stands, it creates a pressure to conform, when, in fact, the most exciting music often happens when you don’t.
Question: In an age dominated by digital listening, how important is live performance to you? Is it central or secondary? And do you think the concert format itself is evolving, toward immersive, spatial, or interactive experiences where the listener becomes an active explorer rather than a passive audience?
Bryan Senti: Live performance is essential, especially now, in the age of AI and digital streaming. Performing live is a way of declaring your humanity, showing that there’s a person behind the music, someone who can play, feel, and communicate directly.
For me, it’s also about experimentation. I haven’t done a lot with electronics yet, because I’m still deeply exploring the expressive possibilities of strings, but I absolutely see the future moving toward more immersive and interdisciplinary formats, installations, spatialized performances, and hybrid spaces where sound interacts with architecture and movement.
It’s part of what makes contemporary performance so exciting. We’re no longer confined to concert halls, we’re playing in clubs, galleries, and unconventional spaces that change how audiences listen. That shift is healthy; it reminds us that music is not just sound, but experience.
Acknowledgements
I warmly thank Bryan Senti for generously sharing his time, reflections, and creative process. His openness has been essential in shaping this conversation within The Sonic Atelier - Conversations with Contemporary Composers and Producers.
By Francesca Guccione