Don Davis (composer)
Donald Romain Davis (born February 4, 1957) is an American composer, conductor, and orchestrator known for his film and television scores. He has also composed opera, concert and chamber music.
Don Davis | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Donald Romain Davis |
| Born | February 4, 1957 Anaheim, California, U.S. |
| Genres | |
| Occupation(s) |
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| Years active | 1979–present |
| Labels | Varèse Sarabande
La-La Land Records Albany Records |
| Website | www |
Davis has collaborated with well-known directors including the Wachowskis, Ronny Yu, and Joe Johnston in genres ranging from horror, to action, to comedy. His best known works include music for the first three films of The Matrix franchise, and the television series Beauty and the Beast and seaQuest 2032.
Davis has been nominated for eight Primetime Emmy Awards, winning twice for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series. He has also won four BMI Film Music Awards.
Early life and education
Davis was born in Anaheim, California. He began playing trumpet and piano at the age of nine, and started writing music at twelve. As his affinity for music grew, so did his aspirations, and soon he was composing and arranging orchestral charts for local jazz ensembles that he also performed with.
After graduating from high school, Davis enrolled at UCLA. He continued his study of musical composition with tutor Henri Lazarof. Additionally, he learned orchestration from Albert Harris.[1]
Career
During their orchestration lessons, Harris introduced Davis to the TV composer Joe Harnell, who supported Davis during his search for work—his first job was working for composer Mark Snow's TV show Hart to Hart. He has worked as an orchestrator and conductor for Michael Kamen, Alan Silvestri, James Horner, and Randy Newman.
Davis was nominated for the Emmys in 1990 for Beauty and the Beast and won in 1995 for SeaQuest DSV.[2] He wrote scores mostly for television series up until 1995, in which he wrote a few of the cues for the animated Disney motion picture A Goofy Movie. He continued to score television series until the two then young directors, the Wachowskis, hired him to score their neo-noir film Bound. It was reasonably successful at the box office. Bound was the film which led Davis into becoming the composer for the entire Matrix trilogy. Subsequently, Davis has composed scores for films such as Universal Soldier: The Return, Jurassic Park III (recommended to the filmmakers by John Williams, the composer of the scores for the first two films in the series), House on Haunted Hill, Behind Enemy Lines, and The Unsaid. In 2004, he produced the music score for the BBC science fiction documentary series Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets, released as Voyage to the Planets and Beyond in the United States.
Davis' magnum opus is the Matrix franchise: The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, and The Animatrix. It was set apart from other film scores of its time for its atonality and avant garde style of composition, with influences from polytonal minimalist works by John Adams and cluster-like as well as aleatoric techniques prominent in the works of composer Witold Lutosławski.
In addition to orchestrating and conducting his own scores, Don Davis has done orchestration work for many other composers. He was the conductor for the movie Flowers in the Attic, whose score was composed by Christopher Young, and for the TV documentary Eagles: Hell Freezes Over. He arranged music for The 86th Academy Awards as well. He is also regular orchestrator for Randy Newman.
Don Davis' political opera, Río de Sangre, premiered at the Florentine Opera Company on October 22, 2010. Excerpts of the opera had previously been performed in Los Angeles with the Los Angeles Master Chorale on November 6, 2005, and the New York City Opera on May 13, 2007.
Personal life
Davis currently splits his time between Southern California and British Columbia, Canada. He has been married to Megan MacDonald since 1986, and they have two children together.
Filmography
Film
| Year | Title | Director(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1984 | Hyperspace | Todd Durham | |
| 1988 | Blackout | Doug Adams | |
| 1991 | Session Man | Seth Winston | Short film |
| 1992 | Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation | Various | Composed with Steven Bramson, Bruce Broughton, Albert Lloyd Olson, Richard Stone, Stephen James Taylor & Mark Watters |
| 1994 | A Little Tailor's Christmas Story | Allan Rich | Short film |
| 1996 | Bound | The Wachowskis | |
| 1997 | Warriors of Virtue | Ronny Yu | |
| 1998 | The Lesser Evil | David Mackay | |
| 1999 | Turbulence 2: Fear of Flying | ||
| The Matrix | The Wachowskis | ||
| Universal Soldier: The Return | Mic Rodgers | ||
| House on Haunted Hill | William Malone | ||
| 2001 | Antitrust | Peter Howitt | |
| Valentine | Jamie Blanks | ||
| Jurassic Park III | Joe Johnston | Original Jurassic Park themes by John Williams | |
| The Unsaid | Tom McLoughlin | ||
| Behind Enemy Lines | John Moore | ||
| 2002 | Long Time Dead | Marcus Adams | |
| Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever | Kaos | — | |
| 2003 | The Matrix Reloaded | The Wachowskis | |
| The Animatrix | Various | Composed with Machine Head & Photek | |
| The Matrix Revolutions | The Wachowskis | ||
| 2004 | Mighty Times: The Children's March | Robert Houston | Documentary short |
| 2006 | The Marine | John Bonito | |
| 2007 | The Good Life | Steve Berra | |
| Ten Inch Hero | David Mackay | ||
| 2017 | Tokyo Ghoul | Kentarō Hagiwara | |
| A Symphony of Hope | Brian Weidling | Documentary film | |
| 2018 | Beyond the Sky | Fulvio Sestito | |
Orchestration work
Television
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1983 | Square Pegs | 2 episodes |
| 1983–84 | Hart to Hart | 4 episodes |
| 1986 | Kay O'Brien | Episode: “Wreck the Halls” |
| 1987 | Sledge Hammer! | 2 episodes |
| 1987–90 | Beauty and the Beast | 48 episodes |
| 1990 | Matlock | Episode: “The Personal Trainer” |
| 1991 | My Life and Times | Episode: “The Collapse of '98” |
| 1990–91 | Tiny Toon Adventures | 5 episodes |
| 1992 | The Plucky Duck Show | Episode: "A Ditch in Time" |
| 1993 | Star Trek: The Next Generation | Episode: "Face of the Enemy" |
| 1992–95 | Capitol Critters | 8 episodes |
| 1993–94 | Taz-Mania | 4 episodes |
| 1994–95 | SeaQuest 2032 | 13 episodes |
| 1995 | CBS Schoolbreak Special | Episode: "Between Mother and Daughter" |
Television films and limited series
| Year | Title | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | Bluegrass | Simon Wincer | |
| A Stoning in Fulham County | Larry Elikann | ||
| Quiet Victory: The Charlie Wedemeyer Story | Roy Campanella II | ||
| 1989 | Home Fires Burning | Glenn Jordan | |
| 1990 | Running Against Time | Bruce Seth Green | |
| 1991 | Lies Before Kisses | Lou Antonio | |
| A Little Piece of Heaven | Mimi Leder | ||
| 1992 | Notorious | Colin Bucksey | |
| Woman with a Past | Mimi Leder | ||
| 1993 | Country Estates | Donald Petrie | |
| Murder of Innocence | Tom McLoughlin | ||
| 1994 | In the Best of Families: Marriage, Pride & Madness | Jeff Bleckner | |
| Leave of Absence | Tom McLoughlin | ||
| 1995 | Sleep, Baby, Sleep | Armand Mastroianni | |
| 1996 | For Love Alone: The Ivana Trump Story | Michael Lindsay-Hogg | |
| In the Lake of the Woods | Carl Schenkel | ||
| The Beast | Jeff Bleckner | ||
| The Perfect Daughter | Harry Longstreet | ||
| Doomsday Virus | Eric Laneuville | ||
| 1997 | Alibi | Andy Wolk | |
| Not in This Town | Donald Wrye | ||
| A Match Made in Heaven | Paul Wendkos | ||
| Weapons of Mass Distraction | Stephen Surjik | ||
| The Third Twin | Tom McLoughlin | ||
| House of Frankenstein | Peter Werner | ||
| 1998 | The Lake | David Jackson | |
| Life of the Party: The Pamela Harriman Story | Waris Hussein | ||
| Route 9 | David Mackay | ||
| 1999 | In the Company of Spies | Tim Matheson | |
| 2000 | Hell Swarm | Tim Matheson | |
| Race Against Time | Geoff Murphy | ||
| Personally Yours | Jeffrey Reiner | ||
| 2002 | Murder in Greenwich | Tom McLoughlin | |
| 2004 | Space Odyssey | Joe Ahearne | Documentary |
| 2006 | Augusta, Gone | Tim Matheson |
Other works
- Chronym I for flute (1977)
- Trio for violin, viola & cello (1978)
- 12 Poems For Jonathan David Wolf for soprano & piano (1978)
- Chamber Concerto (1978)
- Timbral Spectra (1979)
- Chamber Variations (1979)
- Chronym II (1980)
- Chamber Symphony (1981)
- Chronym III (1981)
- Symphony (1982)
- Bleeding Particles (1983)
- Harsh (1988)
- Bleak (1989)
- The Eye And The Pyramid (1990)
- Going On (1991)
- Green Light (1992)
- What Is The Silence (1993)
- Afterimages (1994)
- Of The Illuminated (1995)
- Flurry (1996)
- No Exit (1996)
- The Enchanted Place Suite (1997)
- Pain (1998)
- Illicit Felicity (1999) - Excerpt from “Bound” score
- Critical Mass (2000)
- Wandering (2002)
- A Lunatic Air (On Fire) (2002)
- Río de Sangre (2005) - Opera in three acts
References
- McCandless, Greg; McIntyre, Daniel (2017). The Craft of Contemporary Commercial Music. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-39686-4. Retrieved January 29, 2020.
- "(Don Davis search results)". Emmy Awards. Television Academy. Archived from the original on January 30, 2020. Retrieved January 30, 2020.