Daniel Kavanagh
Lives in Newcastle, NSW, Australia
I hold a Bachelor of Arts Drama and a diploma of Education from the University of Newcastle. I have had the opportunity to work at a proffesional level in most aspects of theatre, in mostly writing and directing. Primarily an actor, I got into composing and song writing quite by chance. I was in a show a friend of mine was writing and she didn't have any one to write the songs so I jumped in and got it done. We formed our own production company in 1997 "That's All!" productions, producing work mainly in theatre for young people. Since 1998, we have had great success with several productions. The most successful, "Cinderella - The Musical" was nominated for 6 CONDA awards and won 2, one being for my music. We then produced "Cinderella" with a full adult cast in january 2003. That year also saw me receiving 4 CONDA award nominations and 3 awards, two being for musical direction and one for best actor in a musical. Sibeliusmusic has also helped to launch international productions of my work, in Schools both in the U. S. and the U. K. which makes me pretty proud.
Even though my musical experience is primarily in Musical Theatre, my influences are many and varied, Hans Zimmer, Kate Bush, Stephen Shwartz, Elton John and Stephen Sondheim being the most prevalent. Being a singer, my compositions are always written from a singer's point of view. My focus is always on Melody and Tempo, and so my orcherstrations can be, at times, quite hit and miss but i'm getting there...heheh.
Because a lot of the work I do is with children, the style I use is generally "Pop"-ish in form, the melodies are catchy and simple without seeming "kiddish", and most vocal arrangement makes creative use of counter-melodies most of the time, rather than harmony, which sound impressive but are relatively easy to learn. My lyrics can seem a little simple on first read, but they seem to work well in context. 2006 sees me revisiting a lot of my old material and revising it...so look out for updated scores.
Please feel free to e-mail me with feed back as I love to hear suggestions and critiques of my work. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it.
Dan. |
