Elias Tadeus: On Kindness, Suffering, and Healing—A Composer's Journey

Elias Tadeus is an award-winning film composer, record producer, and director whose work spans over 17 years of professional practice. A largely self-taught artist who began composing at age seven, Tadeus has built an impressive career that includes collaborations with Disney, numerous commercial projects, and critically acclaimed film scores. His 8-minute VR animation Aripi garnered 46 awards worldwide, including recognition at the Toronto International Film Festival, while his haunting cello-driven score for The Man Without a Lifeline (2023) earned him his second nomination at the International Sound and Film Music Festival in Croatia.

Could you share some details about your musical background and tell us what experiences shaped you as a composer?

I’ve been doing this professionally for about 17 years now. As a passion, I’ve been doing it since I was about seven years old. So, it’s almost 30 years of musical activity. [As a child] I had a very strong passion for cinema in general. I was watching a lot of movies and somehow started to transcend this experience in real life. Being a child, I was playing around, and I was a director, an actor, a soundtrack guy, an SFX guy, you know? I had a lot of introverted time with myself and my “films”, which I was creating on the fly. And now I have come to the point that this has become my craft. And, of course, a strong passion for music, piano being one of my best friends since I discovered it.

Have you done any professional training? Or are you a self-taught composer?

In general, I am a self-taught composer. I have a year of experience from music college and then a few months at the local National Conservatory. But I have a free spirit in how I obtain new knowledge, new experiences, and trying to reduce how I see the world to some existing patterns of musical education, somehow, for me, was boring. And because I was developing my skills in parallel – sound engineering, sound design, orchestration, composition, working with media, on commercials, songs – you know, a full cycle of production – is how I came to the point of directing videos and movies. This happened, I guess also because I gave myself time and space to evolve, to discover, not being pushed into some exact patterns. And I’m very grateful that I had this kind of opportunity to [learn] in such an independent way.

ELIAS TADEUS

Beyond your film and TV work as a composer, you have also worked on personal and experimental projects. Can you talk to us about some of your intimate projects, such as the book of poetry you released a while back?

Yes. By the way, the second book is like a month away from getting on the shelves. The first book was a really intimate project because it consists of poetry written in three languages, which I freely speak. It’s a collection of poetry I’d written over the last 15 years. There was a struggle, for like half a year: do I really want to expose myself? Because it was so intimate, it was about my feelings and what experiences I had. Some of them were very, very intimate: my relation with God, my relation with the woman I met, and I was in a relation with. And I passed it because some of that was very healing for me. Because life is quite versatile, and you have a whole palette of feelings and experiences. And at some point, when it was really hard for me, this poetry just gave me the freedom; it liberated me from hard feelings. And this was a moment when I told myself that if it helped me, it was probably going to help someone else, too. Healing, I think, now is what people need in general all over the world.

I also have another intimate project which I’m working on now. It’s a solo piano album called Pianotudes, [featuring] the most intimate pieces of piano music that I wrote when I was struggling or had deep affective feelings, and I needed to free them. So, music and poetry help me. And this is, at the moment, the most intimate project which I’m working on, and the next book, which is more philosophic, more mature – another stage of adulthood. And also shows. I’m quite oriented to live performance shows in which we create a story, not just a collection of music we play on the stage with an orchestra.

What achievement are you most proud of in your career so far?

There are a couple. The first big achievement in my career was in 2016-2017 when I got my first collaboration with Disney. And it was a breakthrough for me to be able to work with such high executives at such a high level. It brought me so much experience and motivation to become better and better in what I do and how I deliver music. It’s like shaping your attitude to the craft you do, first of all.

I was very fortunate to meet the general producer at the premiere of a movie. Kindness helped me, by the way, because it was winter, it was very cold outside, and a lot of people were at the coffee corner. And there is an older guy, good-looking and in a hurry because the film was starting very soon, and I understood that a coffee would make him happier at that point. I offered my place in the row because it was my turn. He was a little shocked, but he accepted. I didn’t know who he was. We exchanged a joke, a few words, and he just at one moment said, “Let me present myself. Vladimir Grammatikov, General Producer at Disney.” I was like, “Whoa!” And I said I’m a composer. And this is how it began. So, kindness opened the door. I did a short film, then a full feature film, and then I started to do more and more projects.

And the next milestone is the Aripi animation, which went very well. It’s an 8-minute VR animation, but with a very deep, profound story. I somehow resonated with that, and I did a good score, I guess, because we got, in general, around 46 awards all over the world. We had one from TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival), we were on the shortlist with Badoo and Disney, and we won at the VR awards in 2019. We felt that we did a good job, everyone, all the all departments, but you don’t know how it will go worldwide. And when, after two years from the premiere, you’re still receiving awards, it’s pleasing. It was my first nomination at the International Sound and Film Music Festival (ISFMF) in Croatia and now I’m happy that the second nomination came with the next big film which I did, The Man Without a Lifeline (Omul Fără Linia Vieții), which is a very profound drama with a very good cast of Romanian actors and Moldovan director Adriana Vasilcov, who is a very talented emerging director, but now an experienced one after a big film.

How did you get to work on this project?

I was in the middle of directing a few commercials at the time – this is another path which I developed over the years. And the DOP, who works with me, who is one of the best DOPs in this area now, also worked on this film, and he said, “You know, we filmed a movie, and Adriana is a little bit shy. She thinks you are too huge to [write the music for it].” And I said, “No, I’m not. Where did you get this from? I’m friendly and anyone can access me on social media, email or whatever.” I said, “Invite her to where we’re shooting the next commercial and let’s have a talk.” And she came to me and she said, “Look, I have such a story.” And I said, “Adriana, I like the story, I know you’re a great director, I know that the DOPs are great, I think it’s a great work, but let me see how it rolls, how it resonates with me, and then we discuss.” I’m very happy I came to the point where I can decide on which projects to participate in or not, because for me, it’s more important the message, how it’s done and what faith this movie will have further on.

I watched the movie three times and once again with Adriana. Some moments brought me to tears. They resonated with some of my personal experiences, and I said, “Adriana, it will be very hard for me to write because it’s triggering something inside me, but I’ll do it. And it will be very beautiful.” And another thing was that I had around one month to do it. And I wrote some very beautiful themes played by Radu Croitoru, who is a great cello player with whom I work a lot. I said, “This is very human, there’s a lot of humanity in this movie.” And I said I need an instrument which will relate most to the human spirit. And the cello, by its construction, has a range like that of the human voice. So, it resonates with the human being, and for me, when it’s about transferring very human feelings, it’s the cello. I said, “Radu, be prepared. I’ll write some great themes for you.”

THE MAN WITHOUT A LIFELINE

What were you trying to achieve with this score?

First, what I want to understand is if I can add value or not; if I can add something a little more to the picture, so the viewer can get the whole picture. And secondly, to make it beautiful. Because even suffering can be beautiful; there is unpleasant suffering, but sometimes there is pleasant suffering. And suffering creates the beauty itself. In general, all beauty is born from suffering: from a flower, to a tree, an animal, and the birth of a new human. It’s through suffering, but it’s beautiful; you need to pass it.

And yes, it was a milestone because this movie held for about three months in the cinema, with ticket sales exceeding 60% at every screening. It went very well and we are really happy. And I’m happy that it came to me and I could bring the best I could at the moment.

Did your vision align with that of the director?

Yeah, sure, because, as I said, I watched the movie together with her, and we were talking about what to do. I’m glad that I had the freedom to choose. 95% of the time, she accepted the themes. She was like, “Yes, this is it.” So, this is another confirmation that I aligned very well with the mood and the frequency of this movie.

And another milestone which I can remember now is the TV series which we’ve done for a private Romanian TV company, called Vlad. I have a few systems which help me with the logistics and how we prepare everything for a new score. But this time I needed two more composers and an assistant because in three months we wrote more than 900 minutes of music, like ambient themes and all.

It was great because we put this to ourselves [as a goal]. Can we do it? And do it from scratch. It was 13 episodes of one and a half hours each, and for each two episodes, there was a new director. So, they had the senior director, who was managing everything. The general director, the senior, and five more. While we were writing music, they were shooting the series. So, it was a mess, a creative mess. I’m happy we handled it successfully. And a few episodes were the most viewed episodes on TV. We are happy we were part of all this, and we got this experience, and we just pushed our limits. We thought we had a limit, but we pushed it far away. So, now we can handle anything, I guess. [laughs]

Going back to The Man Without a Lifeline, the movie has a lot of emotional scenes. What was the most difficult scene to score?

Oh my God. That was the scene where the little boy is going to hang himself from a tree when he’s going with his goat, and he takes the rope and… that was tough. On his birthday…

Then the second was when the main hero meets his daughter, after 12 years, in the airport scene. There’s another scene where the TV presenter, Delia, unfolds her identity. And we came up with the Delia theme, which now became a song written together with Vica Demici, who is a very good lyric writer, who lives in London. And together with her, we have now just finished the lyrics for this Delia them, which became a song and a part of our new project, Cinemaphonika.

How early did discussions about the music ensemble size start for this project?

I did a concert in 2024. We had an experimental show, which had the name Manifest, which is a music show with choreography and poetry in it to which I wrote 70 minutes of original music, and it was another quest for me because it’s a program music. So, you actually have a story through which you should pass but you don’t have exact actions like when you’re seeing a picture.

I’m very fortunate to have the trust of directors, probably because I start each project with several talks. Before I start working, I need to plant that seed before it becomes a tree,e and I had the freedom to choose what I want, and I came to a hybrid orchestra, which consists of a rock band. I like rock. I wrote a lot for rock bands and recorded a lot of them, and I like to have drums, bass, electric guitar, keyboards, and then a string part. I had the camerata 20 strings and also played some stems playback, and we synchronised. The light, the sound, and the animation were time-coded. And it was WOW! It’s another thing. It’s the first time I was commissioned to write for a show. And it went so well. For three days, people talked about us. My story feed was full. And I said, “What is happening?” Okay, I did a great score, but you never expect how it will go, especially when you have some experimental works. And this left a big footprint in my conscience. I liked it.

By the way, yesterday I had a meeting with an extraordinary director from Italy. His name is Stefano Poda. He is a crazy guy because he does some big shows with like three hundred artists on the stage beside the symphony orchestra. He puts on big operas like Nabucco, and he does these crazy dances and costumes. And when I saw this, I said, “This is the man I need for my Rediscover the Legend project, the ballet. I met him yesterday in Bucharest because he put on the Oedipe opera by George Enescu at the National Opera. And when we met, I started to talk about the project, and he was like, “Yeah, I had in mind to put on a ballet because I did a lot of opera, but I want something new.” And when I told him all my ideas, he was so engaged immediately, and I received very important validation from a huge director. And we are working with him now. We started the negotiation, and we’ll see in a week or so how we’ll start to collaborate on this idea.

ELIAS TADEUS

And, in parallel, with a soprano from Romania, Alis Fãinițã, who is very talented, we started Cinemaphonika, which is a kind of hybrid metamorphosis of a few styles, like sympho-rock combined with soundtrack-style music with SFX, with a surround setup. And all this embraces songs. So, it’s actually songs in a new kind of arrangements with choir, with orchestra, with band, with stems, with SFX. It’s a new kind of experience, which I’m very proud of in [what concerns the] creative part, because we need to see how it will go financially. In November, we’ll have our first big show in Chișinău. And then we are looking forward to bringing it all over the world to whoever will be interested in it.

I went away from the main question. Sorry. [laughing] In the beginning, each project for me is new; I don’t use patterns, like composers like to create stems. I don’t like it. I want to discover a movie and what I want to say in it each time. Yeah, it takes more time for the preparation, but I enjoy it. I feel very bored when I start a new project with the same sounds you used on the previous one. And as I said, the movie The Man Without a Lifeline is very human, and I needed an instrument that would represent the human voice. And in this moment, it was the cello. It depends on what I see, the picture, and what I want to emphasise. So, I did a new setup completely. I think I spent one or two days just searching for sounds. Not composing, just grabbing sounds and organising them for different scenes. And that’s how I work. I try first to feel it; to plant the seed and let it grow with all the struggles, procrastination and everything which comes with this process. [laughs]

There have been a lot of conflicts around the world in recent years, and unfortunately, those conflicts are also affecting artistic expression and the type of work that people can get. Has the war in Ukraine affected your work opportunities?

It’s a good question. I don’t think it has an answer yet because the conflict is not over, and it’s still somehow creating waves periodically, which bring instability in the region. First, we had to move to another country with our family, our kids. And, of course, this brought a discrepancy in my workflow because I needed to find another studio, bring my equipment, and make new contacts. The recent projects in Moldova were stopped, and the first half of the year was pretty tough. Then somehow people just got used to it and started to see how to develop having this conflict in a close neighbourhood – Moldova’s neighbouring Ukraine, and so is Romania. But, you know, it gives me some time to reflect on what I do and where I want to move further and at some point, it brought me to concentrate more on the personal projects, rather than being a composer for hire. From a short perspective, it wasn’t so pleasant, but in the long run, you see that, yes, there were some good points in all of this. I know that good will win anyway. Because good is love. And love is life. If there will continue to be life, then it will be good. Because bad is destruction, and that’s all. There’s nothing after destruction, but there’s a lot more after love, and that is why I’m saying, we need healing, kindness, and love for each other. As much as we can.