About
Carlos Rafael Rivera is a Grammy and three-time Emmy Award-winning composer whose seven Primetime Emmy nominations span dramatic score, original main-title theme music, and original music and lyrics. His three Emmy wins came for three distinct series: Godless, The Queen’s Gambit, and Lessons in Chemistry. His score for The Queen’s Gambit also received the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media.
Rivera’s career began in film with Universal Pictures’ A Walk Among the Tombstones, starring Liam Neeson. The project established the approach that has defined his work since: bringing a director’s vision to life, often by composing directly from the screenplay. It also began his longstanding collaboration with writer-director Scott Frank, which has continued through Godless, The Queen’s Gambit, Monsieur Spade, and Dept. Q.
His subsequent feature credits include Netflix’s Chupa, Bleecker Street’s Ezra, and New Line Cinema’s They Will Kill You. His upcoming films include Netflix’s Fight for ’84 and New Line Cinema’s The Revenge of La Llorona.
Rivera’s television work includes Netflix’s Griselda, Apple TV+’s Lessons in Chemistry, Disney+’s Just Beyond, the Netflix/Telemundo series La Reina del Sur 3, and all five seasons of HBO Max’s Hacks. His work on Hacks also earned a 2026 Imagen Award nomination for Best Music Composition for Film or Television. That same year, “Mis Figuritas,” an original Spanish-language song for the series, brought him his first Emmy nomination in the Original Music and Lyrics category.
A protégé of Randy Newman, Rivera holds a DMA in Composition from USC’s Thornton School of Music. His concert music has been performed by artists and ensembles including Arturo Sandoval, the Cincinnati Pops, and the American Composers Orchestra. Born in Washington, D.C., and raised across the United States, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Panama, he is based in Miami, where he serves as Professor and Chair of the Media Scoring and Production Department at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music. He has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 2025.