KUALA LUMPUR: Kuching-born Alvin Wee has put Malaysian music on the map with his nomination for a Cinema Audio Society (CAS) Award 2022.
The 34-year-old is the first Malaysian to be nominated in the annual awards, for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for his work in Disney's animated feature film, Encanto.
The head of Encanto's chart-topping soundtrack's sound-mixing team, Wee is "most honoured" to be nominated.
"I'm very proud to be the first Malaysian with a nomination in CAS," he said in a news report today.
The CAS Awards recognises outstanding sound mixing in film and television.
Wee also said he was delighted that Encanto had earned three Academy Award nominations, including Best Original Score.
Its nominee Germaine Franco became the first Latin American female composer to receive an Oscar nomination.
Wee said that Franco was his longtime collaborator and close friend, who approached him to work on Encanto's soundtrack.
"When she told me she was going on an adventure of Colombian music I immediately said, 'yes'," he said.
"The score she wrote was meticulously crafted and simply amazing."
Wee said that it was exciting to mix in traditional Colombian instruments such as the Tiple.
Wee hoped that his achievement would inspire Malaysian musicians to reach for the stars.
Prior to Encanto, Wee helped mix Zee Avi's song Arena Cahaya, the theme from Ola Bola.
He also collaborated with international singers as Jay Chou, Pharrell Williams and Christina Aguilera as well as Malaysian singers Yuna, Jaclyn Victor, Dayang Nurfaizah and Jeryl Lee.
Wee also mixed the soundtracks of Daniel Craig's final James Bond film No Time To Die and Tom Cruise's action film Top Gun: Maverick.