Karin Zielinski

Karin Zielinski (Lima, Peru, April 24, 1982) is a Peruvian composer, record producer and singer who works in musical and audiovisual projects in her country. Among her most outstanding works is the creation of the soundtrack for the Peruvian film El limpiador, directed by Adrian Saba, a work that earned her an Audience Award for Best Original Music at the International Film Festival of Punta del Este,[1] as well as a nomination for Best Original Music in the first edition of the 2014 Platino Awards.[2]

Karin Zielinski
Karin Zielinski in her study, 2014
Background information
Birth name	Karin Zielinski
Born	(1982-04-24) April 24, 1982 Lima, Peru
Genres	Soundtrack rock indie folk pop jazz
Occupation(s)	Musician songwriter producer composer
Instruments	Vocals guitar
Years active	2005–present
Website	karinzielinski.com

Musical beginnings

She began to compose her first instrumental pieces from the age of 13. After taking studies in classical guitar, she began to write songs and to take singing lessons, which led her to compose different songs and to end up forming part of the first generation of singers of the vocal group Voces del Jazz directed by Mónica Gastelumendi and belonging to the Cultural Association Jazz Peru at that time directed by Gabriel Alegría. This stage was very important to start acquiring other tools that later would be used in her career as a composer.[3]

Her professional musical career began in 2005, forming the vocal jazz trio Ezquilache with the singers Maria Laura Bustamante (Alejandro and María Laura) and Yoly García. With Ezquilache they would release a first album, A Tierra Negra (2007), where they would experiment with different genres such as jazz, funk, R&B, pop and their fusion with Afro-Peruvian sounds.[4] A Tierra Negra was one of the most sold jazz albums in Peru in 2007 and the group had relative success in the local scene in Lima. But in 2008 each member would undertake their own projects and finally they would separate.

At the beginning of 2010 she began producing her first solo album. She makes a compilation of 10 of her subjects that talk about different situations in her life as a university student, about her hometown Lima and about the things that disturb her, that 's how Manzanas en el suelo was born, an indie folk – pop album, which stands out for its arrangements of winds, strings, guitars and keyboards. It was released on June 10, 2014, receiving very good reviews.[5]

Training

Zielinski studied a career in Communication Sciences at the University of Lima, a career that sparked her interest in film and audiovisual. Other studies include classical guitar, piano, singing, vocal jazz, harmony, composition and electronic music. She also has a Master in soundtracks and audiovisual media awarded by the Higher School of Music of Catalonia, ESMUC (Barcelona, Spain).

Cinema, theater and television

She begins to work on the development of soundtracks for different short films and documentaries such as El niño y el mar, Bsb, Intensive Care, Faique, Dinosaurio, among others and this is how in 2010 she has the opportunity to create the soundtrack for the animated short film El mundo invisible, based on the illustrated album of the well-known Peruvian artist Fito Espinosa. With this work she launches an EP with the music of the film.

In 2011, she founded her own post-production studio Stereomonkey with her partner Raúl Astete. In it they begin to work in diverse audio-visual and musical projects. It is in that same year that she starts working on the soundtrack for the Peruvian film El limpiador, first feature film by director Adrian Saba. Her work got very good criticism[6][7] and an award in 2013 for Best Original Music at the Punta del Este International Film Festival, standing out among more than 25 Ibero-American films.

In 2013 he starts working on the soundtrack for the film Sueños de Gloria, directed by Alex Hidalgo, first musical about the marinera made in Peru. She also began to work on music for the staging of Canciones para Mirar by Maria Elena Walsh and under the direction of master Alberto Isola.

In 2014, her work at El Limpiador was selected among more than 700 Ibero-American films, obtaining a nomination for Best Original Music at the first edition of Premios Platino of the Ibero-American Film Awards 2014, where she was able to compete with 2 great international composers with a long career, the Argentine Emilio Kauderer and the Spanish Joan Valent.

This same year Zielinski works on the original music of the television documentary Camino a la Hoyada, a documentary by Andrés Cotler that talks about enforced disappearances in the Ayacucho region during the era of Terrorism in Peru in the 1980s.

She is summoned by Giovanni Ciccia to work in music for the play Un Fraude Epistolar, written by Fernando Ampuero del Bosque and directed by Ciccia. In this work she had the opportunity to delve into genres that have more to do with her Peruvian roots and reconnect with Authors of the Lima of 1900.[8]

In 2015, the opportunity to work with Francisco Lombardi, an emblematic Peruvian director and with whom she had the opportunity to work on his latest film, Dos Besos (2015), is the story of a complex love triangle that triggers a series of events and changes in the three characters.[9]

In 2016 La Última Tarde, Joel Calero's second feature, tells the story of a couple in the process of divorce that has not been seen in 19 years, following the steps during a single afternoon. This film has gone through different festivals obtaining important awards as Best Actress for Katherina D'Onofrio at the Punta del Este Film Festival and Best Director for Joel Calero at the Guadalajara Film Festival. Zielinski intervenes in the last scene of the film because at the time of post-production the team realized that there was a void that needed to be told in another way, according toher own words: It is a film that flows alone through its dialogues and that only needs that final push of the music in the last scene, when its characters just stop talking. Music then becomes the dialogue that unites both characters in the epilogue, becomes their voice imperceptibly and leads us to the end.[9]

Between 2016 and 2017 she moved to Barcelona to study a Master in Soundtracks and music for Audiovisual Media at the Superior School of Music of Catalonia, where she had the opportunity to collaborate for the first time with the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra. When returning to Lima, Zielinski begins to work in the sound track of  Django: sangre de mi sangre, a policeman directed by the emblematic director Aldo Salvini. For this film, Zielinski returns to the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra to record the original music.

Discography

• A tierra negra (2007), with Ezquilache
• El mundo invisible (2011), Soundtrack
• Manzanas en el suelo (2014), Soloist
• El limpiador Original Motion Pictur Soundtrack (2014), Soundtrack
• Camino a la Hoyada, Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2017), Soundtrack

Awards and nominations 

Awards	Category	Work	Result	Year
International Film Festival of Punta del Este	Audience Award for Best Original Music	El limpiador	Winner	2013
Platino Awards of Ibero-American Film	Best Original Music	El limpiador	Nominated	2014
Premios Luces El Comercio	Best New Artist 2014	Manzanas en el suelo	Nominated	2014
The Monthly Film Festival TMFF	Best Original Score of The Month	Humano	Winner	2018

Notes

1. "Filme peruano El Limpiador se alza en Festival de Punta del Este" (in Spanish). RPP. March 22, 2013. Retrieved February 12, 2019.
2. "Premios Platino El Limpiador y sigo siendo fueron nominadas" (in Spanish). La República. Archived from the original on October 15, 2014. Retrieved February 12, 2019.
3. Pajares, Diego (June 3, 2014). "Nunca pensé en mi misma como una cantante" (in Spanish). El Comericio. Retrieved February 12, 2019.
4. "Nota Musical: El ritmo negro de corazón" (in Spanish). La República. Archived from the original on October 15, 2014. Retrieved February 12, 2019.
5. "Entrevista a Karin Zielenski nuestra artista de la semana" (in Spanish). Sonorama. Retrieved February 12, 2019.
6. Sarmiento Hinojosa, José (November 19, 2012). "Cobertura 27 festival Mar del Plata El Limpiador de Adrian Saba (I) (SPA)" (in Spanish). Desistfilm. Retrieved February 12, 2019.
7. Linden, Sheri (January 18, 2013). "The Cleaner: Palm Springs". The Hollywood Reporter (in Spanish). Retrieved February 12, 2019.
8. "Traición poética en 'Un fraude epistolar'" (in Spanish). Perú21. September 28, 2014. Archived from the original on October 14, 2014. Retrieved February 12, 2019.
9. "Karin Zielinski es una compositora peruana con 6 películas en su haber y aquí puedes escuchar su música". Utero.pe (in Spanish). November 6, 2016. Retrieved February 12, 2019.