Biography
Emmanuel Segarra Ortíz was born in Bayamón Puerto Rico and began his musical education as a child thanks to his father. He began learning to play the trumpet and upon entering the Escuela Libre De Música de San Juan, he studied the alto saxophone. In his last year of high school, Emmanuel studied harmony and composition with the composer Rubén Toledo. In 2014, he won the "Best Composer" award at the Smithsonian American Sabor Contest event on which Emmanuel conducted his work with the Puerto Rico Concert Band and in 2018 the first prize in the Danza Contest of the Cultural Institute of Puerto Rico. Over the years, Emmanuel has presented and conducted his works at the Escuela Libre de Música of San Juan and Caguas, the University of Puerto Rico (Rio Piedra campus), the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico, and the Gallery Inn hotel as part of the Concert Series Young Artists Concerts of Puerto Rico which Emmanuel co-founded with the pianist Bryan Ojeda. Emmanuel has also collaborated with different students around the island to musicalize special projects such as in the Puerto Rico Gamejam of 2019 and at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus. In 2020 the Institute of Culture of Puerto Rico awarded Emmanuel the Narciso Figueroa recognition for his Puerto Rican danza "La Conejita Moona." Emmanuel's score for the movie "Miracle at Manchester" was nominated at the prestigious 2023 International Christian Film Festival for Best Musical Score and won the Gold Award as Best Original Score at the Christian Family Film Festival.
He graduated in 2019 from the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico with a concentration in Composition after four years of studying with the renowned composer Alfonso Fuentes. Right after graduating, he attended the NYU Film Scoring Summer Workshop where he had the opportunity to learn from masters such as Mark Snow (X Files) and Mark Suozzo.
He holds a Master's degree in Screen Scoring from the prestigious program of the University of Southern California where he studied with industry-leading composers such as Garry Schyman (Bioshock, Dante's Inferno, Shadow of Mordor), Patrick Kirst (The Kissing Booth, Breaking Surface), Eric Schmidt (Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas, Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring), Pete Anthony (Orchestrator for The Mandalorian, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Jungle Cruise) and Christopher Young (Hellbound, Spiderman 3, The Grudge)
Emmanuel worked as music preparator for the 2022 Netflix series Woman of the Dead and currently works assisting the composer Aaron Zigman (The Notebook, Bridge to Terabithia, Sex and the City 2) where he collaborated in different films alongside the composer.