For me, one of this year’s most enjoyable assignments involved spending time with Brazilian-born composer Heitor Pereira, whose delightful music for the animated movie Minions (and before that, the Despicable Me movies) helped to propel that film to box-office heights. Heitor is not just a world-class guitarist, he’s a fine arranger and producer as well (listen to Melody Gardot’s album The Absence, for example). What I found most fascinating was his thoughtful, deeply philosophical approach to making music of all genres. I wrote three stories: the main one follows his journey from Simply Red guitarist to film composer; a second one quotes some of his recent collaborators; and a third one looks ahead to films coming up.