Franco Esteve – The Hunt
ARTIST NAME: Franco Esteve
SONG TITLE: The Hunt
ALBUM TITLE: The Hunt
RELEASE DATE: May 14th, 2019
GENRE: Modern Classical, Classical Crossover
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Franco Esteve was born on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico and had a multicultural upbringing throughout the United States and Europe.
This multicultural upbringing led to his adoption of the concept of everywhere and nowhere for his views of life, origin, and culture.
The same has applied to his professional life as well, covering a multitude of disciplines, feeding his thirst for knowledge and expression.
As a child he developed in music and piano, and also as an actor, acting in local commercials and theater, later developing in other areas of production, photography, design, and film.
He’s fully bilingual in English and Spanish and has a working knowledge of Catalan, as well as a degree in psychology.
He has produced and directed commercials and music videos but is best known for his work with The Doll Chronicles series of short films, particularly Consequence, The Doll Chronicles, which he produced and directed.
He also composed the music for the series, for which he has received accolades.
Though his work is more focused on scoring for films, and he has a special love for the genre, he’s never thought of himself as tied down to it.
He finds all genres have great music, and loves to explore them all.
On a single playlist, he might jump from Nine Inch Nails to Beethoven to Snoop Dogg to Led Zeppelin to The Ink Spots to John Barry to She Wants Revenge.
Mostly he expresses himself as seeking beauty and expressing it, no matter the art form.
His latest work, The Hunt, is a story-driven, modern classical crossover concept album exploring the hunt for life, love, happiness, success, and all that comes with it, serving as a metaphorical soundtrack to life itself.
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Discuss how you develop your melody.
It often begins with an experience and the feeling that experience brings to mind and how that might express itself musically.
I’ll think of that feeling, music and an idea begins to take form. I’ll quickly lay it on whatever’s at hand (usually the iPad), and then work to develop it from there on the keyboard, trying out different things until the music in my head is fully translated into something similar.
Sometimes it can start one way and become something else along the way, like having a conversation with the notes and instruments.
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Tell us your source of inspiration.
I’m inspired by beauty, finding it, seeing it, experiencing it.
I’m inspired by my wife, by my life, by experience, by other people, by other music, by films.
The surprising thing is when inspiration comes from unexpected places, as in the song, The Wait, which was born straight out of battling insomnia.
Inspiration can come from anywhere and at any time. It can be a piece of music from Gershwin or She Wants Revenge, a feeling, a drive, a story.
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Tell us the most memorable experience in your music career.
Insomnia turned into music, which turned out to be one of my most popular songs, The Wait.
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Discuss how you build your song.
It obviously varies from song to song but, in the case of The Hunt, for example, the process started with the idea of movement and drive towards something.
The song then flowed from there, with ideas developing in my head.
I played some of it on the piano and then started writing the notes on my iPad and Mac until I had most of the song written.
I was lucky enough to have most of the idea and orchestration in my head but struggled to translate the ending in my head unto something I was satisfied with. A couple of endings later, I had it the way I wanted.
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Tell us how you ensure your music inspires others.
I think if you’re honest in your expression, others will find something to relate to and be inspired by. I try to be honest and lay it all out, telling a story of life, love, happiness, drive, loss, experience, and making something beautiful that listeners can love, relate to, and be inspired by.
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Discuss the relevance of promotion to the music business.
Promotion is a never-ending necessity to help people find, discover, and fall in love with your music.
One can call it a necessary evil, but it can be a good thing too as it can help direct you as to how you want to define yourself artistically.
When you have to sell your art or yourself as an artist, what may have been abstract or ambiguous becomes concrete.
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Tell us what you will do apart from music.
I’m a multi-disciplinary artist who works on films, photography, writing, and other art forms. Artistic expression is not about the medium, but about expressing beauty, a feeling, a thought, etc.
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List the names of the instruments you can play.
I can play the piano and the guitar, but I can also make horribly annoying noises with a violin.
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Tell us if you have any music background.
I had great exposure to music as a child through family members but was never allowed to have proper music lessons, so I taught myself to play and write music. This eventually led to my creating music for adverts and films and to releasing my own music.
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Tell us the piece of advice you will give to a new artist on entering the music chart.
Today’s success is not tomorrow’s. Enjoy the moment, then on to the next project.
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Elaborate on melody and rhythm.
Melody and rhythm are the essences of the song, so follow it, or don’t, make it pretty, make it harsh, make it danceable or break it all. I see rhythm as the drive and melody as the story, but both are two essential parts while at the same time, as in all art, they also wish to be broken when necessary.
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State your future goals.
Art is a pursuit of beauty, honesty, and expression, so my goal is to continue on that path and reach people, inspire them, entertain them, make them think, question, take them on musical journeys, stories, etc.
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Share your recording experience with us.
Recording an album can be a lot of fun and is extremely rewarding, but it can also be exhausting in its laboriousness.
When something’s not working, it’s not working, and you have to get through it.
In my case, I don’t have other people to please or report to during the recording process, but that can at times be worse, as there are times, after take number 47, for example, that you just don’t know what you’re doing anymore and have to find a way to pull yourself together.
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Tell us the most difficult part of the recording.
Take 47. That moment you just want to quit everything because you just don’t know what you’re doing or why.
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Discuss the greatest mistake you have ever made in your music career.
Listening to my parents and not starting my career earlier.
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Tell us how you build up your composition.
A lot of my music is composed in my head, so when I actually sit down to play or write the notes; I often have a pretty clear idea of how it’s all supposed to go.
My biggest struggle is usually translating that music into something that I’m satisfied with and captures what I’m trying to express.
When it’s something I have to build on, I might come up with a number of versions until reaching what I think is the correct one.
The Hunt, for example, was mostly done in my head, but the end bit had a couple of different versions.
Other times, I’m simply playing with ideas on the piano and build from there, letting the notes talk to each other and to me.
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Discuss the relevance of music.
Music is the essence of life. It’s beauty. It’s entertainment. It’s a moment of sadness, of happiness, of success, of loss, of love, of life. Where would we be without music?
The fabric of the universe is musical. In this age of the democratization of music, it’s more relevant than ever, as voices that previously had no opportunity to express themselves and be heard, now have similar access to those with greater privilege.
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Elaborate on the song.
The Hunt, the song, is moving. It’s driving towards a goal. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s a metaphor for the hunt of life, but it’s also a conversation within that story.
The two clarinets are talking both with each other and with the cello and trumpet.
There are moments of sexiness and even raunchiness.
The song touches on a wide range of life’s areas through the music and each instrument’s individual expression as they converse.
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Elaborate on your artist name and the title of the album.
Franco Esteve is my nickname and my surname.
The title of the album, The Hunt, has to do with the overarching story across the songs of the album and metaphorically represents the hunt of life, hunting for health, for life, for happiness, for love, for ideas, for creativity, for success.
Life has happiness, but it also has pain, and that is also reflected in some of the music (especially in Quicksand and Lament).
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Share your press release and review with us.
HuffPost review of the single, The Wait, from the album, The Hunt:
Huffpost
Franco Esteve’s New, Classical Crossover Concept Album, “The Hunt,” attempts to give an orchestral soundtrack to life itself Cala Ratjada, Baleares, Spain – May 14th, 2019: Puerto Rican artist and composer, Franco Esteve, has released a new, modern, classical crossover music album called “The Hunt.”
The concept album, highly anticipated due to its popular, previously released and well-reviewed singles, “The Wait” and “Quicksand,” has been three years in development and represents Franco Esteve’s first, strictly classical crossover effort and full, concept album.
While the multi-disciplinary artist and composer is known to create music with a film focused, a story-driven approach created to elicit images and feelings in listeners, this latest work, his fourth album and first independent of a film or video project, takes that approach and creates a non-existent film, metaphorically inspired by life.
Esteve is an award-winning filmmaker and composer, and soundtrack lovers, in particular, will be keen to appreciate the story and personal “movie” that the album is meant to evoke.
Jamsphere Magazine, in their review of “Quicksand,” the first single from “The Hunt”, had this to say about the composer:
“To say his music is cinematic is all too obvious and Esteve’s ability to create simple and emotive musical narratives is a rare gift to be admired…Esteve’s music has a universal appeal that will attract audiences of many cultures and musical tastes.”
A Huffington Post review has said the following about Franco Esteve’s second single from “The Hunt”, “The Wait”: “(Franco) Esteve has composed a glistening tune that is simultaneously diaphanous and sensitive, yet emancipated and emotive.”
“With The Hunt, I wanted to do something different, expressing through classical, orchestral music, the images and feelings one gets from life itself, whether it’s the drive of The Hunt, or the insomnia of The Wait, or the sadness of Quicksand and Lament. The Hunt serves as a metaphor for life’s experiences and is an indirect soundtrack of it, expressed as individual musical pieces that are easy to digest and absorb.”
Esteve sees “The Hunt” as the soundtrack to one’s life, taking the story of a hunt and superimposing it and metaphorically representing the hunt in life for health, for happiness, for love, for strength, for success, or even for life itself.
“Life has happiness, it has loss, it has calmness, and excitement, and those feelings are expressed in the music and in the choice of instruments and orchestration.”
Here is what Franco Esteve says of his creative musical compositions:
“For me, composing music is a process of exploration, which is why I’m so drawn to it. There are so many places to visit and explore and express. I think music can act as a live entity within a story, regardless of where or what inspires it.”
“The Hunt,” is a modern classical crossover music concept album that explores the hunt that is our lives. It’s a story-driven, orchestral soundtrack to life itself. The music and specific instruments and sounds are meant to evoke images and feelings within your mind, projecting your own life’s experiences into your own personal film.
About Franco Esteve:
Franco Esteve is a multi-disciplinary artist – a Composer, Filmmaker, Writer, Photographer, and Artist. He expresses himself artistically in many ways and through different media.
Born on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico, with a globe-trotting background, Franco Esteve is as varied as they come.
He won the Indie Fest Award of Merit in 2015 – Best Original Score – Consequence, The Doll Chronicles Soundtrack.
