LOS ANGELES — The Production Music Association has announced two additional keynote speakers who will be featured during the group’s annual Production Music Conference (pmc.pmamusic.com) in October. Composers Jeff Danna and Mychael Danna — brothers — will speak on October 6th at 2pm. This year’s PMC event will take place from October 4th through 6th at the Loews Hollywood Hotel.
Currently celebrating its 20th anniversary, 2017 also marks the PMA’s Fourth Annual Production Music Conference. The event presents industry leaders from the production music industry for two days of panels, sessions, state of the art presentations, and networking.
Adam Taylor, Chairman of the PMA, says, “Jeff Danna and Mychael Danna are two of the most talented and in-demand composers today whose accomplishments are equally impressive across motion pictures and television. They work with many of the top directors in the entertainment industry, and have won numerous awards. I’m sure attendees to this year’s Production Music Conference will be eager to hear them discuss their career highlights and advice they can offer about the state of the production music industry.”
Jeff Danna has created scores for a long and varied list of films. His credits include such diverse projects as the hit film adaptations of the video game/action franchises Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2; the Ryan Gosling/Anthony Hopkins legal drama Fracture; The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus and Tideland, both directed by Terry Gilliam; Lakeview Terrace, directed by Neil LaBute; a series of films for director Brett Morgen, including The Kid Stays in The Picture, Chicago 10, and, most recently, the Kurt Cobain biopic Montage of Heck; Closing the Ring for director Richard Attenborough; and the cult classic The Boondock Saints, among others.
Additionally, his collaborative Orchestral Celtic albums with his brother, composer Mychael Danna, have enjoyed worldwide success and placed in the Top 10 on the Billboard chart in the United States.
For television, Jeff and Mychael wrote the original music for the FX series Tyrant, which earned them both Emmy nominations in the categories of “Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Original Dramatic Score)” and “Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music” in 2015. They were previously Emmy-nominated for Camelot in 2011.
In 2015, the Dannas worked on the score for The Good Dinosaur, and received an Annie nomination for “Outstanding Achievement, Music in an Animated Feature Production.”
Both composers recently wrote the original score for the animated film Storks, which was released in theatres in September 2016, and for Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, directed by Ang Lee.
Upcoming projects include the animated film The Breadwinner, which will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. For television Jeff and Mychael are writing the music for Alias Grace for Netflix.
Photo L-R: Mychael Danna and Jeff Danna. (Courtesy of Cassandra Church)