The first Oscar nominated Latina composer worked on the score for Encanto
Making history, Germaine Franco is now the first Oscar nominated Latina and only the sixth woman in history to become nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score. She received the astounding honor for her work on Disney’s animated film Encanto.
More than 494 million people have listened to the “Encanto” soundtrack, where songs such as “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” and “Dos Oruguitas” by Sebastian Yatra have won over hearts throughout the world. All of the songs on the Encanto soundtrack were written by Lin-Manuel Miranda while all scores were composed by Franco.
In an interview with Spotify, the first Oscar nominated Latina stated the following:
“For each score that I create, I like to dive deep into the culture of the protagonists and the regions specific to the location of the storytelling. I spent many hours listening to and studying the structures, instrumentation, performance styles, harmonies, melodies, and rhythms of traditional Colombian music. I felt that the Colombian instruments would provide me with inspiration, which they did-especially the arpa llanera (Colombian harp) and the marimba de chonta (Afro-Colombian marimba), and I knew that the score would be much richer if we were able to hear the authentic voices of Colombian musicians and singers.”
According to Franco, she immersed herself in the magical realism of Colombian novelist Gabriel Garca Márque by fueling herself with creativity for Encanto while conducting in the author’s literature.
Franco is an El Paso native and attended school in Houston. During her time at Rice University, she prepared for her career while giving music her undivided attention while perfecting her craft.
The first Oscar nominated Latina spent more than four years working on 2017’s Oscar-winning Pixar animated film Coco. Together with screenwriter and co-director Adrian Molina, Franco co-wrote and produced five out of the six original songs for the film, including “Proud Corazón”, “The World Es Mi Familia”, and “Un Poco Loco”.