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Mychael Danna | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Danna in January 2020 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | (1958-09-20)September 20, 1958 (age 67)[1] |
| Origin | Toronto,Ontario, Canada |
| Occupation | Composer |
| Years active | 1987–present |
| Website | www |
Mychael Danna (born September 20, 1958) is a Canadiancomposer of film and televisionscores. He won both theGolden Globe andOscar forBest Original Score forLife of Pi. He has also won anEmmy Award forOutstanding Music Composition for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special (Original Dramatic Score) in his work on the miniseriesWorld Without End.
Danna's family moved toBurlington, Ontario, when he was four weeks old. He is the brother of fellow composerJeff Danna. He studied music composition at theUniversity of Toronto. He has two children with his wife, Aparna.[2]
Danna served for five years as composer-in-residence at theMcLaughlin Planetarium inToronto (1987–1992). Works for dance include music forDead Souls (Carbone Quatorze Dance Company, directed by Gilles Maheu 1996), and a score for theRoyal Winnipeg Ballet'sGita Govinda (2001) based on the 1000-year-old classicalGita 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 forAtom Egoyan'sFamily Viewing, a score which earned Danna the first of his thirteenGenie 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 asAtom Egoyan,Deepa Mehta,Terry Gilliam,Scott Hicks,Ang Lee,Gillies MacKinnon,James Mangold,Mira Nair,Billy Ray,Joel Schumacher, andDenzel Washington. His soundtrack for Ang Lee'sLife of Pi earned twoAcademy Award nominations forBest Original Score andBest Original Song forPi's Lullaby.
Other films includeDan Scanlon'sOnward,Mimi Leder'sOn the Basis of Sex,Nora Twomey'sThe Breadwinner,Bennett Miller'sCapote andMoneyball andMarc Webb's(500) Days of Summer.
On September 30, 2021, Danna received a Career Achievement Award from theZurich Film Festival.[5][6]
