Mychael Danna

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Mychael Danna
Background information
Born	September 20, 1958 Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Origin	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Occupation(s)	Composer
Years active	1987 – present
Website	mychaeldanna.com

Mychael Danna (born September 20, 1958) is a Canadian film composer.

[edit] Biography

Mychael Danna is the brother of fellow composer Jeff Danna. 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. [1] 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 acclaimed 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.

He studied music composition at the University of Toronto, winning there the Glenn Gould Composition Scholarship in 1985. Danna also 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 Indian erotic poem, with choreographer Nina Menon.

Recent projects include Deepa Mehta's Water, Atom Egoyan's Where the Truth Lies, Terry Gilliam's Tideland, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris' Little Miss Sunshine, and Bennett Miller's Capote.