Biography

DAVID ALLEN is an award-winning composer and musician who specialises in film music, music for the media, theatre music, choral music, and concert music.

His film music combines elements of orchestral, acoustic, electronic, and synthesised genres to create imaginative and diverse soundscapes that blend seamlessly with the rest of the soundtrack, enhancing the drama and developing distinctive and immersive musical scores, while his non-dramatic works explore melodic, harmonic, and textural devices so as to construct organic, evocative, and colourful musical compositions.

David's original score for TOOTH FAIRY was awarded the BEST SCORE AWARD at the Screentest Festival 2017, and his choral work THERE IS NO ROSE won the 1ST GIROLAMO ABOS INTERNATIONAL COMPOSITION PRIZE at the Malta International Choral Festival 2015. He was also nominated for the WDR FILMSCORE AWARD and EUROPEAN TALENT AWARD IN SOUND DESIGN at SoundTrack_Cologne 2015 for his alternative score and sound design for OMA.

Over the past decade David has written the music for several feature films, documentaries, adverts, and corporate videos - including work for Martini, NatWest, and Elsevier - as well as composing for dozens of short films and animations. He has also been commissioned to write choral and concert music for various different musical ensembles, with compositions performed by the BBC Singers, the Oxford Philharmonic, and the National Youth Chamber Choir of Great Britain.

Films featuring David's music have been screened and won awards at festivals around the world, including TOOTH FAIRY (REMI AWARD WINNER, Worldfest-Houston 2017), A DEEP BREATH (PRIX DE JURY, Festival Mondial de l’Image Sous-Marine 2014), and RAILWAY REDEMPTION (nominated for BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE, East End Film Festival 2013).

His theatre work includes a combination of composition and musical directing, including critically-acclaimed scores for SHIVERMAN, ANTIGONE, A DREAM PLAY, and MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL. His musical directing work has combined the direction of the majority of his original scores, as well as the musicals MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, THE THREEPENNY OPERA, PASSION, INTO THE WOODS, ASSASSINS, and many more.

David is originally from Newcastle upon Tyne in the north-east of England, and he studied music at the University of Oxford, specialising in music composition and film music, where he was tutored by renowned contemporary composers Andrew Gant and Robert Saxton, and held the organ scholarship at St Edmund Hall. He was subsequently awarded a Masters Distinction in Composition for Screen from the Royal College of Music in London, where he studied under film composers Vasco Hexel and Francis Shaw. He is frequently engaged as a performer on piano and organ, both as a soloist and accompanist. He is an Associate of the Royal College of Organists and is Organist & Director of Music at St Alban's Anglican Church in Copenhagen, Denmark.