Danna was born in Burlington, Ontario, to a musical family active in local theatre and church choir. A reluctant young piano student, Danna found solace in an electric guitar left behind at his home by a friend. Unknowingly following in the path of three generations of Winnipeg mandolin players, progress came quickly. He began playing professionally at the age of 15 until a hand injury brought his performance career to a halt at 22.[2]
Career
Danna's first foray into film scoring occurred while recovering from his injury. Unable to play for extended periods of time, his brother, Mychael, suggested that he record the guitar parts on some of Mychael's first scores, figuring that they could take breaks at intervals as necessitated by his injury. Seeing a way to sustain his music career, Danna turned to film scoring. Subsequently, the brothers' first co-writing venture, Cold Comfort, was nominated for a Genie award and laid the foundation for Jeff's career in film and many future collaborations with his brother.[2]
Following that was Tim Blake Nelson'sO, a modern-day retelling of Shakespeare'sOthello. Danna took the opportunity of the Shakespeare connection to employ a vielle and a viola da gamba in combination with dark orchestral colors, his first of many uses of early music instruments in his scores.[4] By the time O was released in theaters, Danna was at work again with Tim Blake Nelson on his World War II Holocaust drama The Grey Zone. Nelson's desire for an onerous death camp atmosphere meant that there would be no score in the film until the final credits, where Danna composed a dissonant and powerful dirge, merging a small chamber group with Klezmer soloists, using an approach akin to modes of limited transposition to evoke both a terrible beauty and desolation.[5]
Resident Evil: Apocalypse followed in 2004, earning Danna four SOCAN Awards for International Film Music, and then a reunion with brother Mychael on Terry Gilliam’sTideland, their first time working together since their Celtic albums, seven years prior.
In 2014, Jeff and Mychael wrote the original music for the FX series Tyrant, earning them both a Hollywood Music in Media Award for the Main Title, as well as Emmy nominations for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Original Dramatic Score) and Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music, the same category for which they were previously Emmy-nominated for their work on Camelot in 2011.
In 2015, the brothers composed the score for Disney and Pixar's The Good Dinosaur, which received a BMI Film and TV Award for Film Music, three SOCAN Awards, a nomination for Best Original Score for an Animated Film by the International Film Music Critics Award, and an Annie nomination for Outstanding Achievement for Music in an Animated Feature Production. More sibling collaborations followed, notably the original score for Warner Brothers' animated film Storks which won a BMI Film and TV Award for Film Music, and Ang Lee'sBilly Lynn's Long Halftime Walk.
In 2017, Jeff and Mychael undertook scoring Nora Twomey's The Breadwinner, which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. The Breadwinner was nominated for an Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement for Music in an Animated Feature Production, won the Best Original Music Award from the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in France and won the Canadian Screen Award for Film Score of the Year. The brothers followed up that effort with Alias Grace for Netflix, for which they were Emmy nominated in 2018 and garnered a nomination for a Canadian Screen Award.
Jeff and Mychael then worked together to score the animated feature The Addams Family, released in 2019, which earned a BMI Film & TV Award for Film Music, and Disney & Pixar's Oscar-nominated animated film Onward, which opened in theaters on March 6, 2020, for which they received an Annie nomination for Best Music for a Feature, a BMI Film & TV Award for Film Music, and an International Film Music Critics Award nomination for Best Original Score for an Animated Film. Following that, he and Mychael wrote the original score for the MGM feature The Addams Family 2, earning them a Hollywood Music in Media Award for Best Original Score for an Animated Film and a BMI Film & TV Award for Film Music.
