WELCOME
I’m a composer, music producer, sound engineer, director, actor, performer, and pianist with experience in film scoring, musical theatre, arranging, audio production, and bringing original stories from concept to the stage.
About
My name is Marcelo Cantu
I’ve always been fascinated by how music can completely change the way a story feels. I’m a composer and storyteller from Monterrey, Mexico, currently studying Music Composition at Loyola University New Orleans. From scoring films to creating original musical theatre, I love bringing stories and emotions to life through music.
A Soldier’s Naive Heart
A Soldier’s Naive Heart is an original one-hour musical featuring an entirely original story, score, and lyrics, co-created by Leonardo Campos and me. Set during a revolution, it explores love, friendship, sacrifice, and freedom through a fully staged student-led production with an original cast and live performance.
A Soldier's Naive Heart
A Soldier's Naive Heart
A Soldier’s Naive Heart — PROSHOT | Original Musical, Act I
TRAILER | A Soldier’s Naive Heart — Official PROSHOT
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Watch the PROSHOT
During our senior year of high school, we brought Act I of A Soldier’s Naive Heart from an idea to a fully staged, one-hour original musical. What started as a creative project grew into a complete student-led production, with students involved in every part of bringing the show to life—from the original story, music, and lyrics to the direction, performances, set, lighting, costumes, and sound.
Beyond the stage production, we also took the music into a professional recording studio to produce a cast recording, giving the score a life beyond the live performance. The project became an opportunity to experience the entire process of creating an original musical, from writing and development to production, performance, and recording.
Showreel
This showreel features a selection of some of my strongest compositions, highlighting my work across film scoring, theatre, and instrumental music.
Below, you can explore these projects in more depth, including my original score for Romeo & Juliet, the score for Fading Memory, 1 Min Playlist, a collection of short pieces inspired by different musical styles and ideas, and my original piano album. Each project represents a different side of my work as a composer and storyteller.
Romeo & Juliet — Original Score
For my high school’s production of Romeo & Juliet, I composed approximately 25 minutes of original music in just one week. The score was written for a full orchestral sound and built around recurring character and story motifs, allowing musical ideas to develop alongside the play.
Working within a live theatrical production also meant composing around specific scenes, transitions, dramatic beats, and timing—creating a cohesive score that supported the story from beginning to end.
For selected sheet music and scores, click here: View Sheet Music
A collection of musical ideas, short compositions, and creative experiments inspired by films, composers, and different cinematic styles. These pieces are a space for me to explore new sounds, emotions, and techniques while continuing to develop my own voice as a composer.
Live String Quartet
An original string quartet composed during my time at Berklee, exploring how four individual voices can work together to create movement, contrast, and emotion. The piece gave me the opportunity to develop my writing for strings while experimenting with harmony, texture, and musical storytelling.
To view the sheet music, click here.