Biography
Daniel Nielsen is a Danish-American composer and musician who 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.
Throughout his career, Daniel has worked 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.