Knowing the Score

Emilio Kauderer is a busy man.

The Woodland Hills composer is putting the finishing touches on music he wrote for a sprawling multimedia project commissioned by New York’s Museum of Tolerance. At the same time, he is composing the score for a couple of films. And he is assembling a new ensemble he characterizes as “a techno jazz group.”

He is still receiving accolades for his work in the Latino musical “Paquito’s Christmas,” the Internet-only movie “Quantum” directed by Oscar-winning set designer Eugenio Zanetti, and the music he wrote for those flashy videos Ricky Martin used during last year’s “Vida Loca” tour.

Yes, Kauderer has an eclectic agenda. And he relishes every moment of it.

“I just finished writing my first piano concerto,” he said recently. “I find that moving from style to style is an incredibly enriching experience. From classical to the latest trends, music never ceases to nourish me.”

The composer was born in Argentina 50 years ago. He performed with various rock groups in the ‘70s, then underwent rigorous keyboard training at the Moscow Conservatory. It inspired him to abandon classical music and devote himself to modern idioms, from film scoring to instrumental albums with New Age undertones. “Playing material from the classical repertoire didn’t seem creative enough and I just thought it was better to quit,” he said. “I knew that perhaps I would come to regret that decision, but I never did.”

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Kauderer returned to Argentina and became a respected film composer. He developed a close working relationship with Adolfo Aristarain, one of the South American nation’s leading filmmakers and director of 1992’s Oscar-nominated “A Place in the World.”

In 1987, Kauderer moved to Los Angeles. “I wanted my music to sound good,” he said, referring to the technological limitations in Latin America. “The movie budgets had deteriorated. Before, Argentina produced 60 movies a year. Now, there were about eight.”

These days, Kauderer has established an enviable list of clients and collaborators. He records most of his projects at his home studio in Woodland Hills.

“I still enjoy that magical encounter that takes place when you go deep within yourself in order to create a melody,” he said in his poetic, Italian-tinged Argentine accent. “Every time I see that blank page waiting for new notes to be born, I am filled with doubts, insecurity and euphoria.”

Kauderer’s melodies are unabashedly sentimental. Cynical listeners would call him schmaltzy.

“Everybody needs a cozy emotional corner where they can hide once in a while,” said Kauderer, who is married and has two sons. “The tendency today is to be cool, to explore only one shade of the palette and stay there forever. I believe in music that has a development, a beginning that eventually takes you to an emotionally satisfying finale.”