Mychael Danna | |
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Background information | |
Born | [1] Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada | September 20, 1958
Origin | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
Occupation | Composer |
Years active | 1987–present |
Website | www |
Mychael Danna (born September 20, 1958) is a Canadian composer of film and television scores. He won both the Golden Globe and Oscar for Best Original Score for Life of Pi . He has also won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special (Original Dramatic Score) in his work on the miniseries World Without End.
Danna's family moved to Burlington, Ontario, when he was four weeks old. He is the brother of fellow composer Jeff Danna. He studied music composition at the University of Toronto. He has two children with his wife, Aparna. [2]
Danna served for five years as composer-in-residence at the McLaughlin Planetarium in Toronto (1987–1992). Works for dance include music for Dead Souls (Carbone Quatorze Dance Company, directed by Gilles Maheu 1996), and a score for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's Gita Govinda (2001) based on the 1000-year-old classical Gita Govinda, with choreographer Nina Menon. In June 2014, Danna was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Toronto, for his career achievements in the field of music. [3]
He has been scoring films since his 1987 feature debut for Atom Egoyan's Family Viewing , a score which earned Danna the first of his thirteen Genie Award nominations. He has won five times for Achievement in Music - Original Score. [4] Danna is recognized as one of the pioneers of combining non-Western sound sources with orchestral and electronic minimalism in the world of film music. This reputation has led him to work with such directors as Atom Egoyan, Deepa Mehta, Terry Gilliam, Scott Hicks, Ang Lee, Gillies MacKinnon, James Mangold, Mira Nair, Billy Ray, Joel Schumacher, and Denzel Washington. His soundtrack for Ang Lee's Life of Pi earned two Academy Award nominations for Best Original Score and Best Original Song for Pi's Lullaby .
Other films include Dan Scanlon's Onward , Mimi Leder's On the Basis of Sex , Nora Twomey's The Breadwinner , Bennett Miller's Capote and Moneyball and Marc Webb's (500) Days of Summer .
On September 30, 2021, Danna received a Career Achievement Award from the Zurich Film Festival. [5] [6]
Exotica is a 1994 Canadian film written and directed by Atom Egoyan, and starring Bruce Greenwood, Mia Kirshner, Don McKellar, Arsinée Khanjian, and Elias Koteas. Set primarily in the fictional Exotica strip club in Toronto, the film concerns a father grieving over the loss of a child and his obsession with a young stripper. It was inspired by Egoyan's curiosity about the role strip clubs play in sex-obsessed societies. Exotica was filmed in Toronto in 1993.
Louis Applebaum was a Canadian film score composer, administrator, and conductor.
Thomas Wander also credited as Thomas Wanker, is an Austrian-born composer for film and television. While his original plans were to play piano in a jazz band, as a teenager he took notice of the emotional response he had to the scores for E.T. the Extraterrestrial and Once Upon a Time in America and grew an interest in film music. In 1992, he moved to Los Angeles to study film composition at the University of Southern California. He has won the BMI Film Music Award in 2008 for his score in 10,000 BC, in 2010 for his score in the film 2012, and in 2014 for the score to White House Down. Wander frequently collaborates with fellow composer Harald Kloser on many of his projects, and is best known for his work on the films of director Roland Emmerich.
Jeff Danna is a Canadian film composer. He has composed or co-composed scores for a wide range of films and television, including The Boondock Saints (1999), Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Silent Hill (2006), The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009), The Good Dinosaur (2015), Storks (2016), The Breadwinner (2017), The Addams Family (2019), Onward (2020), Guillermo Del Toro’s Tales of Arcadia (2019-2021), Nora Twomey’s My Father’s Dragon (2022) and Julia (2022).
The World Soundtrack Awards, launched in 2001, are the annual awards for best film music, presented during the Film Fest Gent. The World Soundtrack Academy supports the art of film music through cultural, educational and professional activities. The event takes place yearly in Ghent, Belgium with the ceremony usually at the Capitole Concert Hall.
The Sweet Hereafter is a 1997 Canadian drama film written and directed by Atom Egoyan, adapted from the 1991 novel by Russell Banks. It tells the story of a school bus accident in a small town that kills 14 children. A class-action lawsuit ensues, proving divisive in the community and becoming tied with personal and family issues. It stars an ensemble cast featuring Ian Holm, Sarah Polley, Maury Chaykin, Bruce Greenwood, Tom McCamus, Gabrielle Rose, Arsinée Khanjian and Alberta Watson.
Family Viewing is a 1987 Canadian drama film. The second feature directed by Atom Egoyan, it stars David Hemblen, Aidan Tierney, Gabrielle Rose, Arsinée Khanjian, and Selma Keklikian. The plot follows a young man from a dysfunctional family who fakes his beloved grandmother's death with the help of a phone sex worker, as his home movie-obsessed father dominates his life.
Ang Lee is a Taiwanese filmmaker. His films are known for their emotional charge and exploration of repressed, hidden emotions. During his career, he has received international critical and popular acclaim and numerous accolades including three Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. In 2003, he was ranked 27th in The Guardian's 40 best directors.
Life of Pi is a 2012 adventure-drama film directed and produced by Ang Lee and written by David Magee. Based on Yann Martel's 2001 novel, it stars Suraj Sharma in his film debut, Irrfan Khan, Tabu, Rafe Spall, Gérard Depardieu and Adil Hussain in lead roles. The storyline revolves around two survivors of a shipwreck who are on a lifeboat stranded in the Pacific Ocean for 227 days. One is a sixteen-year-old Indian boy named Pi Patel and the other is a ferocious Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.
"Pi's Lullaby" is the Tamil-language intro song of the 2012 film Life of Pi. It was composed by Mychael Danna, with lyrics by Bombay Jayashri, who also performed the song. The song earned a nomination at the 85th Academy Awards for Best Original Song. The nomination marks the first ever Tamil song to be nominated in the category.
Rob Simonsen is an American composer and conductor. He is best known for his scores in films such as 500 Days of Summer (2009), The Age of Adaline (2015), Gifted (2017), The Only Living Boy in New York (2017), Tully (2018), Love, Simon (2018), The Front Runner (2018), The Way Back (2020), Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021), The Adam Project (2022), The Whale (2022), Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), and It Ends with Us (2024), and the television series Life in Pieces (2015–2019). He also collaborates with the directors Marc Webb, Jason Reitman and Shawn Levy.
The Breadwinner is a 2017 animated drama film from Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon directed by Nora Twomey. Based on the best-selling novel by Deborah Ellis, the film was an international co-production among Canada, the Republic of Ireland and Luxembourg, and received a limited release on 17 November 2017.
The Sweet Hereafter is the soundtrack album to Atom Egoyan's 1997 film The Sweet Hereafter.
Life of Pi is the soundtrack album to the 2012 film of the same name directed by Ang Lee. It consists of music entirely composed and produced by Mychael Danna. The album was released in November 2012 by Sony Classical and went on to win a number of awards, including the Academy Award for Best Original Score.
The Good Dinosaur (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the score album to the 2015 Disney/Pixar animated film of the same name. The film score is composed by Mychael Danna and his brother Jeff Danna, thus becoming the first Pixar film to be scored by two composers. The score was recorded during April and October 2015, and various instruments were used, including pre-Columbian instruments, to reflect the landscape around the characters, which was an important part of the storytelling. Walt Disney Records released the soundtrack on November 20, 2015.
Where the Crawdads Sing (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack to the 2022 film of the same name released on July 15, 2022 by Mercury Classics. It features the original score composed by Canadian composer Mychael Danna, and an original song "Carolina" written and performed by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. According to Danna, the score's "unique instrumentation creates haunting melodies that are directly inspired by the North Carolina marshlands, and meticulously crafted to foster an almost fable-like sense of time and place".
The Addams Family (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the score album to the 2019 film of the same name directed by Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan based on the characters created by Charles Addams. The film's original music is composed by Mychael Danna and Jeff Danna, released by Lakeshore Records on October 11, 2019 alongside the film. The film also featured two songs: "My Family" recorded by Migos, Karol G, Snoop Dogg, and Rock Mafia, and "Haunted Heart" by Christina Aguilera released as singles on September 13 and 27, but not in the film's soundtrack. On January 24, 2020, the soundtrack was published in double vinyl by Enjoy The Ride Records and Mondo.
Onward (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album to the 2020 Disney/Pixar film of the same name. The score is composed by Mychael and Jeff Danna, in their second Pixar film, following The Good Dinosaur (2015). The scoring was held at the Eastwood Scoring Stage at Warner Bros. in Los Angeles which required a 30-member choir and 92-member orchestra.
Moneyball (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the score album to the 2011 film Moneyball, directed by Bennett Miller and featuring music composed by Mychael Danna, who previously worked with Miller on his 2005 film, Capote. The album featuring 21 cues, as well as two songs: "The Mighty Rio Grande" by the rock band This Will Destroy You from their eponymous 2008 studio album commissioned by Danna for the film and a cover of Lenka's "The Show", performed by actress-singer Kerris Dorsey. Madison Gate Records released the album on September 19, 2011, four days before the film's release.
Hulk (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack accompanying the 2003 superhero film Hulk, directed by Ang Lee based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The soundtrack featured musical score composed by Danny Elfman and the song "Set Me Free" by Velvet Revolver; the album was released through Decca Records on June 17, 2003.