Eclectic is a good way to describe Danny Elfman\u2019s career, colourful too\u2026 Surprising? To him, maybe. Elfman started out as a rock star and ended up a classical composer. He is an artist who has always defied labels, and logic, and if you don\u2019t know the name (though it\u2019s a pretty memorable one) you must know at least some of his music.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Top 10 film composers \u2013 of all time<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n
How many female film composers have won Oscars?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n
What is the difference between a film score and film soundtrack?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
<\/p><\/div> <\/section>
Who i<\/strong>s Danny Elfman?<\/h2>\n
If you\u2019ve sat in front of a television in the last three decades you\u2019ll surely have come across The Simpsons<\/em>, the world\u2019s longest-running animated series. It\u2019s rambunctious theme tune was written by Danny Elfman way back in 1989 and though it was born of a request to create something catchy and multi-coloured, a la The Flintstones<\/em>, it represents the composer\u2019s style very well. That style is flamboyant, a little chaotic \u2013 often colouring way outside of the lines \u2013 but also delighting in complex melodies and rhythms.<\/p>\n\nAs a screen composer Elfman has enjoyed a long career, quickly becoming one of the most distinctive of voices to emerge in the 1980s. His first film score was 1980\u2019s Forbidden Zone<\/em>, a quirky horror directed by his filmmaker brother, Richard. The pair had performed together in the punk-rock band Oingo Boingo (aka The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo), which they had formed in the late \u201970s. Danny cut his teeth in that ensemble, composing, arranging and singing lead vocals, something he has returned to in recent years with a new solo rock album last year and a sell-out run of shows at the Coachella<\/em> festival in California.<\/p>\n<h2>How old is Danny Elfman?<\/strong><\/h2>\nDanny Elfman was born on May 29, 1953 in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<h2>How did Danny Elfman become a film composer?<\/strong><\/h2>\nCinema was a childhood passion, and the local movie theatres a regular hangout. Elfman\u2019s penchant for fantasy and horror can be traced back to these hours spent in the dark, and he\u2019s cornered the market in darkly delightful genre scores. It\u2019s a passion he shared with film director Tim Burton, who approached Elfman to score his first feature, Pee-wee\u2019s Big Adventure<\/em> (1985). The pair went on to form a creative bond which has given us the likes of Beetlejuice <\/em>(1987), Batman<\/em> (1989), Edward Scissorhands<\/em> (1990), The Nightmare Before Christmas<\/em> (1993), Mars Attacks!<\/em> (1996), Sleepy Hollow<\/em> (1999) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory<\/em> (2005), to name a few.<\/p>\nThe composer formed other director partnerships with visionary storytellers like Gus van Sant, Taylor Hackford and Sam Raimi, which opened the door to more serious, dramatic narratives. Indeed, Elfman revealed himself to be a master of pathos and riveting drama in scores such as Dolores Claiborne <\/em>(dir. Hackford, 1995), Good Will Hunting<\/em>(dir. Van Sant, 1997), A Simple Plan <\/em>(dir. Raimi, 1999) and Milk<\/em> (dir. Van Sant, 2008).<\/p>\n<iframe title=\""Good\" will=\"\" hunting=\"\" ost=\"\" main=\"\" titles=\"\" width=\""200"\" height=\""150"\" src=\""https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-TnCQH-i6Go?feature=oembed"\" frameborder=\""0"\" allow=\""accelerometer;\" autoplay=\"\" clipboard-write=\"\" encrypted-media=\"\" gyroscope=\"\" picture-in-picture=\"\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/>\nThe big screen has loomed large, with further blockbusters like Men in Black<\/em> (1997), Spider-Man<\/em> (2002) and Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness <\/em>(2022) on his CV, but in recent years Danny Elfman has increasingly spent time away from the screen. His 2004 symphonic suite Serenada Schizophrana<\/em> allowed the composer to scratch an itch; could he compose an original piece of music that wasn\u2019t dictated by frames and reels? The answer was a resounding yes, and since 2017 the commissions have kept on coming. He has so far written a Piano Quartet (2017), Violin Concerto (2017), Percussion Quartet (2019), Cello Concerto (2022) and Percussion Concerto (2022), Then there\u2019s Wunderkammer<\/em>, written for the National Youth Orchestra in 2020. That work will finally receive its world premiere at the <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/whats-on-at-the-bbc-proms-tonight\/"\">BBC Proms on Saturday (6 Aug).<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nOne thing\u2019s for sure\u2026 there\u2019s never a dull moment for Danny Elfman.<\/p>\nTop image by Getty Images<\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p><\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Michael Beek Published: Wednesday, 03 August 2022 at 12:00 am Eclectic is a good way to describe Danny Elfman\u2019s career, colourful too\u2026 Surprising? To him, maybe. Elfman started out as a rock star and ended up a classical composer. He is an artist who has always defied labels, and logic, and if you don\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":18327,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"3"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/08\/who-is-danny-elfman-the-composer-behind-the-simpsons-scaled.jpg",2560,1707,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/08\/who-is-danny-elfman-the-composer-behind-the-simpsons-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/08\/who-is-danny-elfman-the-composer-behind-the-simpsons-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/08\/who-is-danny-elfman-the-composer-behind-the-simpsons-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/08\/who-is-danny-elfman-the-composer-behind-the-simpsons-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/08\/who-is-danny-elfman-the-composer-behind-the-simpsons-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/08\/who-is-danny-elfman-the-composer-behind-the-simpsons-2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Michael Beek Published: Wednesday, 03 August 2022 at 12:00 am Eclectic is a good way to describe Danny Elfman\u2019s career, colourful too\u2026 Surprising? To him, maybe. Elfman started out as a rock star and ended up a classical composer. He is an artist who has always defied labels, and logic, and if you don\u2019t…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/18326"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}