Biography
-
Born
1973 (age 51)
-
Born In
Santiago, Región Metropolitana de Santiago, Chile
Juan Cristobal Tapia de Veer, also known as Cristo, is a Chilean-born Canadian film and television score composer, arranger, producer and multi-instrumentalist based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He is mostly known for his music to the British TV series Utopia, for which he won an RTS Craft & Design Award in the best original score category in 2013 as well as Channel 4's highly acclaimed National Treasure, which earned him a BAFTA in 2017.
After obtaining his Master's degree (with honors) from the 'Conservatory of Music of Québec', he plunged into the pop music world and got signed to Warner Music in 2001, putting a hold on his classical career. His band One Ton reached number one in Canada in 2003 with the electro-dance single "Supersex World" and won the Canadian Dance Music Award (SOCAN). After a tumultuous tour the young band decided to split up. He continued to work as an album producer and touring musician with a wide variety of bands, further enriching his pop music experience.
In 2011 he scored his first mini-TV series "The Crimson Petal and the White" (dir: Marc Munden, BBC2), nominated at the BAFTA'S 2012 for Best mini-series.
2 years later Munden and Cristo teamed up again to work on C4's critically acclaimed cult series "Utopia". The 2 x 6 episode long conspiracy thriller won an International EMMY Award 2014 for best drama series. His music for Utopia won several awards (both seasons) and became an international milestone in the scoring world.
In 2013, he composed the music for ICI-Radio-Canada's new TV-drama "Série Noire" (dir: JF Rivard), for which he won twice at the PRIX GEMEAUX (Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television) in 2014 and received a third trophy for the second season in 2016. Later that year, he began work on the BBC One mini-series "Jamaica Inn", directed by BAFTA award-winning Phillipa Lowthorpe.
The following year, AMC / C4's co-production "Humans" became C4's biggest drama hit in 20 years and got nominated for best drama series at the BAFTAs 2016.
His first feature film "The Girl with all the Gifts" opened the Locarno Film Festival and was released in fall 2016 (distr: Warner UK). Cristo won in the best original music category at the 24th Festival International du Film Fantastique Gérardmer 2017, the film also won the public choice award.
The same year Cristo was awarded a Golden Fipa 2017 (Festival de Film de Biarritz) as well as a BAFTA for C4's mini-series "National Treasure", which was hailed among critics as the most powerful series of the year.
BBC-America's "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" has been released in fall 2016 and has gathered cult status amongst its fans on Netflix worldwide. Recent releases include 2 episodes of "Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams" (Amazon, C4) as well as the season 4 finale of Netflix' dark sci-fi anthology series "Black Mirror".
SOCAN honoured Cristo with the prestigious International Achievement Award in fall 2017, marking the first time that a composer for film and television has been awarded the prize. Previous recipients of the award include bands such as Arcade Fire.
Due to his monumental success, Cristo was invited to be part of the jury at the 1st edition of Canneseries in France. CANNESERIES aims to highlight series from all over the world and to give an international voice to this increasingly popular and fiercely creative new art form.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Robert K Jennings
Artist descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone. Feel free to contribute!
All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
