Daniel Sonabend is a composer, sound artist and music producer based in London. With a distinctive sound that blends contemporary classical orchestration, cinematic jazz harmony and innovative sound design techniques, his music can be heard in a wide range of works, spanning across film, TV, documentaries and installation art.

Daniel’s recent credits include scoring the documentary series Cold Case Investigations: Solving Britain’s Sex Crimes (BBC2), the Netflix Original feature film Le Masque (Passion Pictures), writing additional music for Earthsounds (Apple TV+, narrated by Tim Hiddleston) and The Louis Theroux Interviews (BBC2), and providing musical sound design for Ridley Scott’s epic Napoleon (starring Joaquin Phoenix), the Disney+ Star Wars series Obi-Wan Kenobi and Marvel Studios’ mini-series Loki. Other recent works include co-scoring the award-winning documentary feature film Piano to Zanskar (alongside Werner Herzog’s composer Ernst Reijseger) and providing additional arrangements for the BAFTA-nominated score of BBC’s mini-series House of Maxwell.

Drawing from his British, Iraqi and Jewish heritage, Daniel grew up in the Tel Aviv jazz and contemporary music scene, quickly becoming a sought after arranger, music producer and multi-instrumentalist, specialising on bass and piano as a musician. Often performing on his music, Daniel is known for his unique and experimental approach to sound design, his attention to detail with orchestration and texture, and his emotive and forward-thinking scores. After studying at the Rimon School of Music and University of Westminster under acclaimed composers and avant-garde artists such as Shirley Thompson OBE, Steve Beresford and Aviya Kopelman, Daniel gravitated towards music for film and continued his studies with Hollywood composition and orchestration masters Conrad Pope, Nan Schwartz and Christopher Young.

As an additional music composer, sound designer, orchestrator and collaborator, Daniel has worked with acclaimed composers including Martin Phipps, Natalie Holt, Andrew Phillips, Nainita Desai, Tom Hodge and Patrick Jonsson on numerous film and TV projects, such as Journey’s End (Based on the R. C. Sherriff play), Infidel (starring Jim Caviezel), Gun No. 6 (2019 BAFTA winner for Best Single Documentary), Wildcat (2023 Emmy nominated score, Amazon Studios), Sir Alex Ferguson: Never Give In (Amazon Studios), the primetime TV drama Press (BBC1) and more. In addition to his long-form work, Daniel composed music for award-winning short films and brand campaigns, including a string arrangement for John Lewis’ Moz the Monster, which was recorded by the band Elbow and directed by Michel Gondry.

Alongside film and TV, Daniel has composed music and sound art for award-winning art installations, often centred around the themes of nature, nurture, scent and spirituality. His work has been presented at the Museum of Future in Dubai, Palais de Tokyo, the Grand Museum of Perfume in Paris, The Royal Academy of Arts in London, The Louvre in Abu Dhabi, De Electriciteitsfabriek in The Hague and The Macallan distillery in Scotland, to name a few. When he is not working on a commission, he produces music albums and regularly collaborates with other artists such as Eliza Shaddad, with whom he created the experimental electronic-jazz Arab/Jewish music collective Sandscape, with their debut album ‘Phenomenology’ to be released in 2025.

Daniel is currently scoring a BBC documentary series and co-composing music for a Disney / BBC Studios co-production.