Jonah Schwartz

I was born in Philadelphia and grew up in New Jersey, where I first started playing in bands when I was 12. I went to college at Rutgers University and dual majored in literature and cinema studies, but I was always playing music on the side.
In 2004, I moved to Buenos Aires where I quickly became involved in the music and art scene that was growing out of the financial collapse of a few years back. My first band here was Los Alamos, a group that was named "Best New Band" by Rolling Stone in Argentina for 2005, and with whom I released 3 albums and an EP, scored a Hollywood film, and toured around Latin America and Europe and sharing bills with Lee Perry, Calexico, Devendra Banhart and The Evens, among others.
When Los Alamos stopped playing in 2009, I helped put together Val Veneto, a 12-piece Afro-influenced orchestra, where I composed the music and wrote the arrangements. We shared the stage with Sean Kuti and Tony Allen and released 2 long EPs. It was around this time that I became interested in writing music for short films, starting with friends' work, and eventually becoming more professional as I built my own studio from the ground up.
My work has been used in film and advertising festivals around the world (Berlin, Cannes, Buenos Aires, etc) and I have been regularly writing music for short films and advertisements for the last 10 years. I currently work with production companies in Buenos Aires such as Can Can Club, Tronco, 1StAve BA, Bamba, Plenty and others.