Carlos Rafael Rivera remembers the exact moment music found him. “The moment I heard Randy Rhoads’ guitar solo on ‘Revelation (Mother Earth)’ by Ozzy Osbourne… it was like a big bang in my head,” he said. He was a kid living in Costa Rica at the time. He’d bounced between Guatemala, Panama, Miami, and back again. But that guitar solo flipped a switch.
That collision between rock and classical, American grit and Latin American soul, eventually shaped one of the most sought-after composers in Hollywood. Rivera, now a three-time Emmy winner and Grammy winner, just landed his fifth Emmy nomination, this time for his haunting title theme for Dept. Q, a Danish noir thriller streaming on Netflix.
Still, Rivera doesn’t talk about the awards first. “Honestly, getting to do this work at all feels like the win,” he told CREMA. For him, the deeper reward lies in the collaboration, the storytelling, and the music that conveys what characters can’t.
In Dept. Q, we meet Carl, a detective at his lowest, stuck in a crumbling basement office with little purpose and even less hope. “Scott Frank [the director] wanted an aggressive, ‘muscular’ score for the show,” Rivera explained. “But in that moment, all I felt was this character’s vulnerability.”
Instead of writing something loud or cinematic, Rivera picked up his acoustic guitar and wrote a delicate, pared-back piece. “It was a risk, but it was honest,” he said. When Frank heard it and responded with, “That’s it,” Rivera knew they had cracked the emotional DNA of the show.
It’s this intuitive trust between the composer and the story, the composer and the director, that gives Dept. Q its pulse. According to Rivera, he and Frank have developed a “rolling mix” process, where music, sound design, and dialogue are mixed from the first edit. “It’s a living process,” he said. “The music becomes part of the story’s DNA, not something added on top.”
Though Rivera’s music has been performed by orchestras and praised by critics, he approaches composition as a service job. “My mentor, the great Randy Newman, told me, ‘Serve the picture, not your ego.’ That’s the job,” he said.
Even when the score goes unnoticed, Rivera sees that as a sign he did his job well. “Your work is meant to be felt, not always noticed,” he explained. Still, this year’s Emmy nomination for Dept. Q is meaningful, not because it’s shiny, but because it’s proof that music rooted in honesty can still resonate in a noisy world.
These days, Rivera splits his time between scoring films and leading the Media Scoring and Production program at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. “My job as a professor is to demystify the hustle,” he said. “It’s not about magic. It’s about craft and showing up.”
When his students ask about composing, he doesn’t just tell them; he shows them. During the Dept. In the Q process, he invited his class to watch a live orchestral session in Budapest via Zoom. “I want to pass on what I’ve learned,” Rivera said. “From my mentors like Randy Newman to my own wrong turns. All of it.”
He teaches his students that being talented isn’t enough. “Talent gets you in the door, but being reliable and a good collaborator is what keeps you in the room.”
Rivera’s score for Dept. Q blends traditional scoring with influences from Celtic punk bands like Flogging Molly and the Dropkick Murphys, an intentional reference from director Scott Frank. But Rivera didn’t score Denmark or Scotland. “We decided early on to score the characters, not the location,” he said.
Each theme reflects emotion, not geography. Carl’s theme uses a descending melodic line to reflect his downfall, while the team’s themes ascend as they come together. “It’s always about finding the voice of the show,” Rivera said. “And for Dept. Q, that voice was about more than anger or aggression. It was about the humanity underneath.”
Raised between the U.S. and Latin America, Rivera doesn’t compartmentalize his identity. “My bicultural background isn’t just a part of my music. It is my music,” he said. “Those rhythms, sounds, and cultures are hard-wired into my DNA.”
He started with classical guitar in Panama, then dove into metal solos in Costa Rica. That mix of formal training and raw, instinctive playing shaped his ear for genre-bending composition. “That’s the foundation of everything I write,” he told CREMA. “American roots and Latin American soul.”
Rivera worries about what he calls “moody wallpaper”: scores that are vibe-heavy but emotionally hollow. “I’m a big believer in melody,” he said. “Themes that an audience can connect with.” As streaming expands and content multiplies, Rivera hopes composers fight for space and voice in the storytelling process.
Because, for Rivera, music isn’t background. It’s the breath between words, the emotional thread between scenes. Or as he puts it, “Music has to say what characters can’t.”
