SoundTrack_Cologne 20: Lifetime Achievement Award for Mychael Danna

Danna is an Academy Award-winning film composer who has composed over 80 film scores and is recognized for his blending of non-western traditions with orchestral and electronic music. He composed the transculturally inspired, 2013 Oscar and Golden Globe winning film score for Ang Lee’s Life of Pi. Danna also composed the scores for Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm and Ride with the Devil.

Other well-known films Danna has composed music for include Academy Award-winning and Oscar-nominated films such as The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica and Ararat from his longtime collaboration with director Atom Egoyan; also Moneyball and Capote with director Bennett Miller, Monsoon Wedding, Little Miss Sunshine, Being Julia, Stillwater, The Addams Family 1 and 2, Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur and Where the Crawdads Sing.

Danna won an Emmy Award for outstanding music composition for the mini-series World Without End. Other television scores include Alias Grace (Emmy Nomination), Tyrant, (3 Emmy Nominations), Camelot (Emmy Nomination) and Return to Space (Emmy Nomination).

Among Danna’s other awards are the Frederick Loewe Award for Film Composing (2013), the World Soundtrack Awards for Film Composer of the Year, and Best Score of the Year (both 2013), and the Hollywood Film Award for Composer of the Year (2016). 

“The most gratifying filmmaking experiences are ones that take effort to unpeel the layers surrounding the heart of the story and to find the best musical expression of that heart,” says Danna. “Those are always the film scores I am most proud of.”

The Canadian-born composer graduated from the University of Toronto and today lives in Los Angeles.