The Composer Who Can Read Minds: How Antonio David Turns Emotion into Sound

There’s a special kind of magic in working with someone who just gets it. Someone who listens carefully, reads between the lines, and somehow manages to bring your exact vision to life — often before you even fully understand it yourself. For a growing number of filmmakers and creative teams across the globe, that person is Antonio David.

Born in Bogotá, Colombia and now based in Los Angeles, Antonio is a composer whose gift goes far beyond writing beautiful music. He’s a translator of feeling — someone who takes the abstract, the emotional, the unspoken, and turns it into music that elevates stories, characters, and entire worlds.

“I think my superpower is listening,” Antonio says. “Not just to the music, but to the people. Directors, producers, editors — they all have ideas that don’t always come in musical terms. My job is to understand what they’re really saying underneath the words, and then turn that into something they can hear and feel.”

That skill has made Antonio an in-demand collaborator across film, TV, and advertising — with credits spanning everything from indie documentaries to high-profile commercial campaigns. He has composed for films like Cancelados (directed by Argentina’s Maxi Gutierrez) and A Contraluz (Alan Stevenson), contributed music to Paramount+’s hit series.

The Agency, and developed original sound for dozens of international shorts, features, and branded spots.

But ask those who’ve worked with him, and you’ll hear the same thing again and again: it’s not just the music that stands out — it’s Antonio’s intuition.

“Antonio David carries with him a strong artistic sensibility; he is capable of intuiting from the image what a scene sounds like,” says director Alan Stevenson. “There’s a curation machine in his brain that draws from a network of references and ideas — and the end result is always deeply connected to the soul of the scene.”

This ability to emotionally align with a story — and with its storyteller — is at the heart of everything Antonio does.

Director Aarushi Nigam, who worked with him on her debut Bollywood documentary, put it this way: “Antonio wasn’t familiar with Bollywood music at first, but you wouldn’t know it from what he delivered. The music went beyond my wildest expectations. He listened — deeply — not just to the references, but to my emotions, my characters, my intentions. He made the music speak the same language I was trying to tell the story in.”

That deep sense of empathy has taken Antonio from Bogotá’s experimental music scene to one of the most prestigious music schools in the world: Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Film Scoring and a minor in Video Game Scoring. It was at Berklee that Antonio refined his technical craft — but his heart has always been in the human side of collaboration.

After college, he made the leap to Los Angeles, where he’s carved out a career working with directors and creative teams across Colombia, Mexico, Canada, the U.S., and Japan. “I love working across borders,” he says. “It reminds me that while every culture is different, emotion is universal.”

Today, Antonio works with Syn, the renowned Tokyo-based music agency and production company. Through Syn, he’s collaborated on projects for some of the world’s biggest brands — including CNN’s presidential campaign, The Home Depot’s holiday anthem revamp, First Horizon Bank, and the design house LoveFrom, founded by former Apple designer Jony Ive in partnership with Moncler.

In each of these campaigns, Antonio’s role has gone beyond composition. He’s a thought partner — someone who helps shape the identity of a piece of content through sound. “In advertising, the goal isn’t just to write a catchy tune,” he explains. “It’s about expressing the voice of a brand in a way that feels fresh, emotionally resonant, and true.” From short-form ads to full-length documentaries, Antonio sees no difference in the emotional weight of the work. “Every piece of music I write is about connection,” he says. “Whether it’s thirty seconds or ninety minutes, I want the audience to feel something Real.”

And that emotional commitment hasn’t gone unnoticed. “He’s the kind of artist you want in your corner,” says director Nicolas Bermudez. “He listens, he collaborates, and he brings love and detail to every single cue.”

Looking ahead, Antonio is scoring new films with directors Aaron Christian Paderewski and Maxi Gutierrez, contributing music to Season 2 of The Agency, and continuing his work on international campaigns with major global brands. He’s also working on a personal project — a collaborative album built with close friends and fellow composers from across his journey.

“It’s a love letter to the people and places that shaped me,” he says. “And it’s a reminder of how lucky I am to do this work — to take someone’s vision, turn it into sound, and help tell their story.”

With a gift for emotional translation and a portfolio that crosses borders, genres, and industries, Antonio David is proving that the most powerful music doesn’t just sound beautiful — it feels understood.