We recently connected with Sarah Trevino and have shared our conversation below.

Sarah, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I’ve always known that I had a different relationship to music than other people. When I was young, my cousins and I would put on singing recitals for our family. We would all perform but I would write the harmonies. I knew I loved creating music from an early age, but didn’t know the first thing about how to go about pursuing a creative path professionally; I had never seen it done before, not in my family nor anywhere in my community. It wasn’t until I graduated from college and began work in a totally unrelated field that I decided to become a composer (but more on that later).

Sarah, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Being an only child, I watched a lot of films as I had a lot of alone time. I’ve always been mesmerized by movies and subsequently been particularly moved by film scores (having a natural inclination towards music), so it’s no surprise that I’m now a composer for film and visual media. I started off self-taught then began to learn on the job while working at Elias Arts as an engineer for composer Jonathan Elias. Jonathan became a mentor and a dear friend and I learned a great deal from him. You may not have heard his name but you’ve heard his work – he’s responsible for some of the biggest sound logos and advertising jingles of all time such as the fanfare for the Columbia Pictures logo, the “We Are Farmers” logo and the “Liberty Liberty Liberty” logo (of which I am the featured female singer, along with Jonathan). Once I learned all I could working on ad music, I decided to go to music school to fill any gaps in my training. That’s when I applied to the USC Screen Scoring program and was admitted. I was very fortunate that upon graduation, a position to work with composer Brian Tyler became available and I got the job! Working with Brian and writing music for him on tentpole films like Fast X and The Super Mario Bros. Movie has been an invaluable experience in what it takes to be a film composer at the highest level. I bring that experience to my own projects, as well as the resources and incredible network of musicians and composers that I’ve amassed working with the best in the business.

I’m proud and grateful for the fact that I’ve been able to establish a career that I could have only dreamed of. Regardless of how “successful” I become, I know that I’m pursuing a vocation that I was made for and that in and of itself is extremely rewarding and fulfilling. My approach to writing music is centered around the truth – what is the music supposed to be? What is the answer here? I’ve learned that my intuitions are usually correct; you just know when something is right and you know when it’s not. The key discipline is being honest with yourself and recognizing when something isn’t quite there and being okay with changing it or scrapping it altogether. I’ve been continuously trying to hone the skill of identifying the truth and changing in light of it.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Despite support for an early interest in music, and a willingness to scrounge up enough money to pay for piano lessons, my traditional immigrant family was adamant that a career in music was not for, “people like us”. How could I argue? There were and are sparingly few composers who were anything like me in any observable way: lower income, female, and with zero access to the industry. My father was a career mailman whose mother crossed the river from Mexico for a better life for her family. My mother, the daughter of Armenian refugees from WWII, was a carpet salesman at that point. Over time, I began to internalize the attitude my family had towards music as well as the attitude society seemed to have towards me. A career in music composition was a pipe dream, so when it came time to go to college and choose a major, I took the practical route and obtained a degree in Business Administration.

I graduated from UC Riverside with honors and braced myself for a sensible and prosaic marketing career. I landed a desirable job at a high-profile ad agency as an account coordinator. It was entry level, but I had found early success and all was as it should be. However, it didn’t take much time filing reports and writing memos before I realized the mistake I had made: I would never be happy with a career that didn’t allow me to express myself creatively through music and I would be forever regretful if I spent the rest of my life doing something I wasn’t meant to do.

Much to the horror of my well-meaning family, I became resolved: If there was a path to music, I would find it. Inspired by this personal epiphany and buoyed by a level of internal resolve (that I honestly didn’t know I was capable of), I bought a laptop and spent nearly every night writing music and learning Logic Pro. Eventually, I networked my way into an internship at Elias Arts, a premier commercial music house.

I spent my first few months as an intern listening to the studio’s commercial music library and tagging each track with descriptive meta-data. It was droll, tedious work that no one wanted to do. I couldn’t have been happier. Over time my title and responsibilities grew, and I began interacting more with head composer Jonathan Elias. It was during our daily sessions that I learned the art of scoring. As Jonathan’s trust in my progressing capabilities grew my role in the creative process began to increase and I ultimately started submitting my own demos for projects. When one of my compositions was chosen by Infiniti Automotive for a national commercial campaign I was officially promoted to composer, which made me the first and only female composer in the history of the company. It was a very long journey and I had arrived. All was finally as it should be. And for a while it was. But something was still missing. While I enjoyed the chance to tell the story of a company or product, what I really want to do is help tell the stories of my generation. That’s when I decided to apply to (and subsequently attend) the USC Screen Scoring program to get my foot in the door of the film scoring world. And here we are. :)

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

That I would maximize my potential and be a good steward of the gifts God has given me. When I’m older and reflect on my life, I want to know that I gave it my all [in everything, not just my career].

Contact Info:

• Website: https://trevinomedia.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trevinomedia/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TrevinoMedia
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-trevino-8095b311/
• Twitter: https://x.com/trevinomedia?lang=en

Image Credits

Ling Lu (just for pic of me looking over a score)