Don Davis (composer)

For other persons, see Donald Davis.

Don Davis
Born	Donald Romain Davis (1957-02-04) February 4, 1957 Anaheim, California, U.S.
Occupation	Film score composer, opera composer, conductor, musician
Spouse(s)	Megan MacDonald (m. 1986)
Children	2
Parent(s)	Don Davis Anne Davis
Musical career
Genres	Film score, electronica, breakbeat, downtempo, neo-classical dark wave
Instrument	Synthesizers

Donald Romain Davis (born February 4, 1957) is an American composer, conductor, and orchestrator. Best known for his work on The Matrix franchise, he has worked on numerous television and film scores, collaborating with directors including The Wachowskis, Ronny Yu, and Joe Johnston in film genres ranging from horror, to action, to comedy. He is the recipient of two Primetime Emmy Awards and four BMI Film Music Awards.

Davis was born in Anaheim, California. 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. 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.

Film and television scoring

Davis won Emmys in 1990 for Beauty and the Beast and 1995 for SeaQuest DSV. 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 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 like John Adams' Short Ride in a Fast Machine and cluster-like as well as aleatoric techniques prominent in the works of composer Witold Lutosławski.

Opera

Don Davis' political opera, Río de Sangre, received its premiere at the Florentine Opera Company on October 22, 2010. Previously, excerpts from the opera were performed in Los Angeles with the Los Angeles Master Chorale on November 6, 2005, and the New York City Opera on May 13, 2007.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Director(s)	Studio(s)	Notes
1984	Hyperspace	Todd Durham	N/A	N/A
1988	Blackout	Doug Adams	N/A	N/A
1991	Session Man	Seth Winston	N/A	Short film
1992	Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation	Various	Warner Home Video	Direct-to-video
1994	A Little Tailor's Christmas Story	Allan Rich	N/A	Short film
1995	A Goofy Movie	Kevin Lima	Walt Disney Pictures	Additional music Score composed by Carter Burwell
1996	Bound	The Wachowskis	Gramercy Pictures	N/A
1997	Warriors of Virtue	Ronny Yu	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer	N/A
1998	The Lesser Evil	David Mackay		N/A
1999	The Matrix	The Wachowskis	Warner Bros. Pictures	N/A
	Universal Soldier: The Return	Mic Rodgers	TriStar Pictures	N/A
	Turbulence 2: Fear of Flying	David Mackay	Trimark Pictures	Direct-to-video
	House on Haunted Hill	William Malone	Warner Bros. Pictures	N/A
2001	Antitrust	Peter Howitt	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer	N/A
	Valentine	Jamie Blanks	Warner Bros. Pictures	N/A
	Jurassic Park III	Joe Johnston	Universal Pictures	N/A
	The Unsaid	Tom McLoughlin	Global Cinema Group	N/A
	Behind Enemy Lines	John Moore	20th Century Fox	N/A
2002	Long Time Dead	Marcus Adams	Working Title Films	N/A
	Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever	Kaos	Warner Bros. Pictures	N/A
2003	The Matrix Reloaded	The Wachowskis		N/A
	The Animatrix	Various	Warner Home Video	with Machine Head and Photek
	The Matrix Revolutions	The Wachowskis	Warner Bros. Pictures	N/A
2004	Mighty Times: The Children's March	Robert Houston	HBO Family	Documentary short
2006	The Marine	John Bonito	20th Century Fox	N/A
2007	The Good Life	Steve Berra	Image Entertainment	N/A
	Ten Inch Hero	David Mackay	Phase 4 Films	N/A
2017	Tokyo Ghoul	Kentarō Hagiwara	Shochiku	N/A
2018	Beyond the Sky	Fulvio Sestito	RLJE Films	N/A

Television

Television film

Year	Title	Director	Notes
1988	Bluegrass	Simon Wincer	N/A
1988	A Stoning in Fulham County	Larry Elikann	N/A
1988	Quiet Victory: The Charlie Wedemeyer Story	Roy Campanella II	N/A
1989	Home Fires Burning	Glenn Jordan	N/A
1990	Running Against Time	Bruce Seth Green	N/A
1991	Lies Before Kisses	Lou Antonio	N/A
1991	A Little Piece of Heaven	Mimi Leder	N/A
1992	Notorious	Colin Bucksey	N/A
1992	Woman with a Past	Mimi Leder	N/A
1993	Country Estates	Donald Petrie	N/A
1993	Murder of Innocence	Tom McLoughlin	N/A
1994	Bitter Blood	Jeff Bleckner	N/A
1994	Leave of Absence	Tom McLoughlin	N/A
1995	Sleep, Baby, Sleep	Armand Mastroianni	N/A
1996	For Love Alone: The Ivana Trump Story	Michael Lindsay-Hogg	N/A
1996	In the Lake of the Woods	Carl Schenkel	N/A
1996	The Beast	Jeff Bleckner	N/A
1996	The Perfect Daughter	Harry Longstreet	N/A
1997	Alibi	Andy Wolk	N/A
1997	Not in This Town	Donald Wrye	N/A
1997	A Match Made in Heaven	Paul Wendkos	N/A
1997	Weapons of Mass Distraction	Stephen Surjik	N/A
1997	The Third Twin	Tom McLoughlin	N/A
1997	House of Frankenstein	Peter Werner	N/A
1998	The Lake	David Jackson	N/A
1998	Life of the Party: The Pamela Harriman Story	Waris Hussein	N/A
1998	Route 9	David Mackay	N/A
1999	In the Company of Spies	Tim Matheson	N/A
2000	Hell Swarm	Tim Matheson	N/A
2000	Race Against Time	Geoff Murphy	N/A
2000	Personally Yours	Jeffrey Reiner	N/A
2002	Murder in Greenwich	Tom McLoughlin	N/A
2006	Augusta, Gone	Tim Matheson	N/A

Television series

Year	Title	Notes
1983–1984	Hart to Hart	N/A
1987	Sledge Hammer!	N/A
1987–1990	Beauty and the Beast	N/A
1990	Matlock	N/A
1991	My Life and Times	N/A
1990–1991	Tiny Toon Adventures	N/A
1992	The Plucky Duck Show	Episode: "A Ditch in Time" (Season 1, Episode 7)
1993	Star Trek: The Next Generation	Episode: "Face of the Enemy"
1992–1995	Capitol Critters	N/A
1993–1994	Taz-Mania	N/A
1994–1995	seaQuest DSV	N/A
1995	CBS Schoolbreak Special	Episode: "Between Mother and Daughter" (Season 12, Episode 5)
1996	Doomsday Virus	N/A
2004	Space Odyssey	N/A

Video games

Year	Title	Studio(s)	Notes
2003	Enter the Matrix	Shiny Entertainment	N/A
2005	The Matrix Online	Monolith Productions	N/A

Orchestration work

In addition to orchestrate and conducting his own scores, Don Davis has done orchestration work for many other composers. He was also conductor for the movie Flowers in the Attic, whose score was composed by Christopher Young, and for the TV documentary Eagles: Hell Freezes Over, and did arrangements for The 86th Academy Awards.

Year	Film	Composer	Notes
1983-1985	V (TV)	Joe Harnell	1 episode.
1985-1989	Moonlighting (TV)
1986	Police Academy 3: Back in Training	Robert Folk	Credited as additional orchestrator.
1987	Police Academy 4: Citizens On Patrol
1988	The In Crowd	Mark Snow
1990	Die Hard 2	Michael Kamen
1991	If Looks Could Kill	David Foster
	Hudson Hawk	Michael Kamen
	Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves
	Ricochet	Alan Silvestri
1992	Death Becomes Her
	The Muppet Christmas Carol	Miles Goodman Paul Williams	Uncredited.
1993	Cop and a Half	Alan Silvestri
	Last Action Hero	Michael Kamen	Uncredited.
	Hocus Pocus	John Debney
	We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story	James Horner
	The Pelican Brief
1994	When A Man Loves A Woman	Zbigniew Preisner	Credited as additional orchestrator. Also composed additional music.
	Clean Slate	Alan Silvestri	Uncredited.
	Maverick	Randy Newman
	Thumbelina	Barry Manilow William Ross	Uncredited.
	I Love Trouble	David Newman
	Clear And Present Danger	James Horner
	The Pagemaster
	Legends Of The Fall		Uncredited.
1995	A Goofy Movie	Carter Burwell	It was never confirmed if he worked on Burwell's score. However, he orchestrated and conducted his own cues.
	Casper	James Horner
	Apollo 13		Uncredited.
	Toy Story	Randy Newman
	Balto	James Horner
1996	James And The Giant Peach	Randy Newman	Also did song arrangements.
	The Phantom	David Newman	Uncredited.
	Courage Under Fire	James Horner
	Ransom
	Michael	Randy Newman
1997	Titanic	James Horner	Credited as additional orchestrator.
1998	Pleasantville	Randy Newman
	A Bug's Life
2000	Meet The Parents
2010	Toy Story 3
2017	Cars 3
2019	Toy Story 4
	Marriage Story

External links

• Official Website
• Río de Sangre Official website
• Don Davis at the Internet Movie Database