My Story
Daniel Nielsen is a Danish-American composer and musician, working across film, television, concert music, sound installations, theatrical productions and modern dance. Daniel’s music combines contemporary classical elements with electronics, merging acoustic instrumentation with both modern and vintage electronic instruments and techniques.
Born in California, Daniel recently relocated from his home in Los Angeles to Copenhagen Denmark. Pursuing what Daniel describes as his “soul mission.”
"This is what I'm meant to do. Denmark represents a return to my ancestral roots. An opportunity to connect with who I am, my history and my sense of belonging to the place I call home.”
A veteran Hollywood composer for the past 25 years, Daniel is now based in Copenhagen, rediscovering his artistic emotional drive and further deepening his commitment as a musical artist. While continuing to pursue his professional work as composer on international and local film and television scoring projects, Daniel’s creative vision has expanded with an openness to explore and develop work all mediums of musical expression.
"The inner work of a creative artist requires an openness to listen, to embrace and protect the fundamental value of our thinking and our ideas, creating the space to actively pursue the goals just beyond your reach. Not defined by success, this sacred space for creating is where we dream and wonder in our imagination. Where experimentation, new ideas and true innovation happens. This risk and the pursuit of the 'ever, onward, almost' is essential for all creative artists. Curiosity inspires the desire to learn, this learning is part of the required work that enables us to show up, be present and give our full self over to the creative process.”
Daniel began his professional career as a jazz pianist while still a teenager, performing with jazz legends and mentors Albert Tootie Heath, Dizzy Gillespie, Louie Bellson, and Charlie Haden. He began his writing career as arranger for the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and the Mingus Big Band in New York and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Hollywood Bowl Jazz Orchestra with John Clayton in Los Angeles.
Daniel was introduced to film as a medium for musical expression by acclaimed Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu while working at the Smithsonian Institute’s Duke Ellington Collection. "It was Toru's creative work with Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa that really opened up a new world to me." While serving as musical assistant to American TV icon Steve Allen, Daniel was first introduced to "show business" of old Hollywood.
Daniel got his start writing for film and television as a staff writer for Walt Disney Studios contributing as composer, orchestrator, and musician on 30+ television and film projects. While working for Disney, Daniel was mentored in the craft of musical scoring and composition through his work assisting famed Hollywood composer Jerry Goldsmith. Daniel's work professionally can be heard "behind the scenes" of many of the biggest movie franchises in the past two decades.
As collaborating partner, Daniel brings professional experience and the technical expertise gained from decades of work at the top of his field. Artistically, Daniel offers an open dialog, listening with curiosity, an open spirit of exploration with the willingness and capabilities to explore new ideas without limitations, and the lasting commitment in achieving the shared vision.
My Work
Throughout his career, Daniel has explored virtually every medium for musical expression. As a composer, Daniel has over 30 years’ experience in orchestral scoring and is an industry veteran providing original music scores for film, TV, advertising, live theatrical performances and trailers for blockbusters such as Harry Potter, Planet of the Apes, Alien vs. Predator, Iron Man, Bridget Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean and The Chronicles of Narnia. In 2002, Daniel composed the theme “Requiem for a Tower” for the Lord of the Rings: Two Towers theatrical release, which has since become one of the most licensed compositions in advertising history. To date, Daniel’s music can be heard in over 350 television series from around the world, including over 2,400 episodes of original television programming.
As performer and composer, Daniel has contributed his talents to an eclectic group of artists and ensembles, including works with acclaimed American author Ntozake Shange in a series of spoken word concerts, and theater production "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf," Clark Terry, Stevie Wonder, Diana Krall, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Nancy Wilson, Shirley Horn, The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Cassandra Wilson, Dave Stewart, Joss Stone, Damien Marley, Hollywood Bowl Jazz Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Charlie Haden Liberation Orchestra, The Mingus Big Band, Phil Collins, Jack Dangers and Meat Beat Manifesto, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Julliard String Quartet, San Francisco Ballet, Asian Pan-American Orchestra, New York New Music Ensemble, and the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra.
Daniel holds a Masters of Fine Arts degree in music composition from California Institute of the Arts where he studied composition with Pulitzer Prize winning composer Mel Powell, Indian master musician Amiya Dasgupta and electronic music pioneers James Tenney, David Roseboom and Mort Subotnik. As educator Daniel has held assignments as professor, guest lecturer and master classes with California State university Monterey Bay, Manhattan School of Music, University California at Irvine, Escuela Superior De Muscia Mexico City and San Francisco State University.
Daniel’s activism in documenting the true history of Jazz as an African American Art form grew from his work as musical archivist for the Smithsonian Institute and the Library of Congress in Washington DC, in the preservation and restoration of historic American jazz collections, including those of Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus and further conducting field recordings for the documentation of the oral histories of essential American musical artists and performers.
