Music Scoring for Screen and Stage student Ricardo Gomes practices his electric guitar while sitting inside one of Sheridan's sound studios

Musician scores valuable experiences at Sheridan

by Jon Kuiperij – Sep 4, 2024

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Growing up in Kolkata, a state capital in eastern India known for its rich arts and culture, Ricardo Gomes naturally gravitated towards music. He learned to play piano before he was 10 years old, took up guitar in his early teens and performed with three different bands while earning his degree in Mass Communication and Videography at St. Xavier's College.

Music Scoring For Screen and Stage student Ricardo Gomes poses for a photo while seated inside one of Sheridan's recording studios But turning his passion for music into a full-time career always felt like a pipe dream, at least until Gomes realized the integral role audio specialists play in many creative industries.

"The introductory courses in mixing and mastering that I took at St. Xavier's made me realize that I wanted to work in audio," he says. "But I also still had my love for music, and I wanted to find something that blended them both."

Gomes' desire to marry musical skills with technological expertise ultimately led him across the world to enrol in Sheridan's Music Scoring for Screen and Stage certificate program. During his 12 months at Sheridan, Gomes not only learned how to compose and produce scores for film, television, animation, video games, apps and musical theatre, he also collaborated with students from other programs on more than a dozen projects.

One of those projects — Beyond The Reins, a documentary led by third-year Bachelor of Film and Television degree students Magill Moyes (director), Jesse Roberto-Biggs (producer) and Samuel Parnahaj (director of photography) — was televised nationally on CBC's Absolutely Canadian series earlier this year, can be streamed on CBC Gem and was nominated for the Film Forward Award at the 2024Eye2Eye International Film Festival.

"The music took a few weeks to complete because of the composing and producing that was involved," Gomes says of Beyond the Reins, which tells the touching story of how a spirited 16-year-old girl with an intellectual disability defies expectations through the world of horseback riding. "The majority of the score is original acoustic guitar and piano, with the addition of stringed instruments at the end to present a country vibe and bring out emotion."

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Opportunity to collaborate on such projects with guidance and support from faculty who remain active in industry is a significant benefit of Sheridan's Music Scoring for Screen and Stage program, coordinator Charlie Finlay says. "Ricardo is special because he jumped in with both feet right from the start, making the connection between scoring for media and collaboration. There are growing pains and hard lessons composers learn on their first collaborative composition projects, and Ricardo handled them expertly."

Graduating from Sheridan — where Gomes often spent as many as 10 hours a day in the college's recording studio, working with industry-grade equipment — this fall now means going out on his own, but Gomes feels prepared.

"Networking is the best way to get jobs in a gig-based industry, and I now have a portfolio, my own website (ricardogomesmusic.com), my own IMDB page and demo reels to show," says Gomes, who plans to target the Toronto film and multimedia market. "When I came here to Sheridan a year ago, I was really nervous about doing this as a career. But now that I've done so much work and built so many connections, I feel good."

Learn more about Sheridan's Music Scoring for Screen and Stage certificate program

Watch Beyond The Reins on CBC Gem

Photos of Ricardo Gomes in Sheridan's recording studios provided by Ricardo Gomes.