Tad and the Magic Lamp – Zacarías M. de la Riva [VIDEO]

On 26 August, the soundtrack to ‘Tad and the Magic Lamp’ is released in digital format, coinciding with the film’s theatrical release.

Over 70 minutes of music composed and orchestrated by Zacarías M. de la Riva, nominated for a Goya Award in 2013 for Best Original Music for the first instalment of the saga.

Performed, like the entire saga, by the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra, with 65 musicians under the direction of David Hernando, and recorded at Studio 1 of Slovak Radio.

Released by Telecinco Editorial Group, the OST features 25 previously unreleased tracks.

Also available in its international edition, ‘Tad and The Magic Lamp (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)’, on 26 August.

 

When in 2004 Zacarías Martínez de la Riva composed the music for an animated short called Tad Jones, he could not have imagined that those first five ascending notes of the main theme would end up accompanying a phenomenon of European animated cinema for more than twenty years. Four feature films later, Tad returns to the big screen with ‘Tad and the Magic Lamp’, and with him returns the familiar musical family: the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra, which has recorded all the instalments of the saga, this time bringing together 65 musicians at Studio 1 of Slovak Radio under the direction of David Hernando.

 

A lamp, a genie and a handful of new leitmotifs

 

True to the style that has defined the saga, linked to leitmotif and an exuberant use of orchestral colour, Martínez de la Riva adds new motifs to Tad’s universe. The magic lamp and its legend bring an epic theme with Arabian overtones that looks to the One Thousand and One Nights, while Suleiman, the villain of this instalment, presents himself with the purest economy of means: ‘Suleiman has a very simple motif, of barely five notes in the flute, and in this case almost without Ottoman overtones’, explains the composer.

 

The Genie deserves special mention, a character with two faces and therefore two musical themes. ‘The Genie has two sides: the side of power, capable of making any wish possible, which is epic and powerful, and then there is her cheeky side, which has allowed me to play with the comic aspect’, comments Martínez de la Riva.

 

The lives of the characters have changed too, and their music with them. Sarah’s theme, created for the first film, returns in a more mature version: Tad and Sarah are now parents. Their daughter Oli debuts an innocent, fragile and playful motif, and the Archaeobot, that robot that starts getting on everyone’s nerves and ends up becoming part of the team, appears for the first time in ‘Antiques shop’ with positive, playful music with a touch of electronics. And there is a very special return for saga followers: the Paititi leitmotif, created for the first instalment, sounds again because part of the story returns to the lost city.

 

A finale for the heart and a secret hidden in the Underground

 

The final stretch of the film is tremendously emotional, and the score accompanies it with several themes that abandon adventure for direct emotional impact. At the other extreme, the album holds a secret for those who hunt for winks: in ‘The tube chase’, the frenetic Underground chase, is hidden an almost impossible-to-detect homage to the soundtrack of ‘Back to the Future’, one of the composer’s all-time favourites.

 

Zacarías Martínez de la Riva: his profile

 

Born in Barcelona and trained at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude with a dual degree in Composition and Film Scoring, Zacarías M. de la Riva has composed for over 60 film and television productions. Among his recent works are ‘The Ghost of My Wife’ (María Ripoll, 2026), the documentary ‘Being Born’ (Susana Guardiola, 2026) and hugely successful series such as ‘Entrevías’ (seasons 3 and 4), ‘The Silence’ (Netflix) and ‘The Invisible Girl’ (Disney+). In 2021 he scored ‘Below Zero’, which was the most-watched film on Netflix worldwide for one week, reaching more than 50 million households.

 

He is best known for the animated Tad Jones saga, whose music has been key to the franchise’s success and has earned him, among others, the Quirino Award for Best Original Music for ‘Tad Jones and the Secret of King Midas’ and nominations for the Goya Award, the Gaudí Awards and the CEC for ‘The Adventures of Tad Jones’. His accolades also include the 2025 Musimagen Award for best series music for ‘Entrevías’, the MundoBSO Award and the Spanish Film Music Critics Award for ‘Automata’, the double nomination for the IFMCA Awards for ‘Automata’ and ‘Imago Mortis’, and a nomination for the Public Choice Award at the World Soundtrack Awards for ‘Below Zero’. His music has been performed in concert by the RTVE Orchestra, the Euskadiko Orchestra, the Bayerischer Rundfunk Orchestra and the Granada City Orchestra, among others.

 

Technical specifications

Zacarías M. de la Riva: composer and orchestrator. Àlex Martínez: additional music and orchestrations.

Joan Martorell: orchestrations. David Hernando: conductor of the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra.

Marc Blanes: sound engineer. Executive music production: Almudena Hidalgo. Recorded at Studio 1 of Slovak Radio. Released by Telecinco Editorial Group.