Danny Elfman, film composer, classical composer, singer-songwriter, and recording artist, has garnered international recognition for composing over 100 feature film scores, as well as compositions for television, stage productions, and the concert hall. Elfman has been Tim Burton's composer for more than 35 years, having scored 17 Burton films such as Batman, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Big Fish, Alice in Wonderland, and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, as well as music, lyrics and songs for  The Nightmare Before Christmas for which he also sang the part of Jack Skellington. Elfman was also the lead singer and songwriter for the LA rock band Oingo Boingo for 17 years.

Elfman has frequently collaborated with director Sam Raimi on films such as Spider-Man and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and with director Gus Van Sant on the Academy Award-winning films Good Will Hunting and Milk. Additionally, he wrote the music for the Men in Black film series franchise, the themes for the popular television series The Simpsons, Desperate Housewives, Tales of the Crypt and more recently, Tim Burton’s Netflix series Wednesday.

A native of Los Angeles, Elfman grew up loving film music. He traveled the world as a young man, absorbing its musical diversity. Elfman, known for being the leader of the band Oingo Boingo, came to the attention of a young Tim Burton and Paul Rubens, who asked him to write the score for Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. Thirty-seven years later, Elfman and Burton have forged one of the most fruitful composer-director collaborations in film history. Throughout his career, Elfman has been honored with four Academy Award nominations, three Emmy® Awards including ‘Outstanding Original Main Title Theme’ for Wednesday (2023), a GRAMMY® Award (1990), the Richard Kirk Award (2002), the Disney Legend Award (2015), the Max Steiner Film Music Achievement Award (2017), and the Society of Composer and Lyricists’ Lifetime Achievement Award (2022).

Elfman has written nine symphonic concert works which are frequently performed throughout Europe and North America. 

Elfman’s orchestral concert works include: Serenada Schizophrana, a symphony commissioned by the American Composer’s Orchestra, which premiered at Carnegie Hall in 2005, Rabbit and Rogue, for the American Ballet Theater choreographed by Twyla Tharp, performed at The Metropolitan Opera house in 2008. In 2017 Elfman premiered his violin concerto “Eleven Eleven” written for, and performed by violinist Sandy Cameron, which had its world premiere in Prague and was released on Sony Classical records in 2019.  The album also features a recording of his first Piano Quartet, commissioned and performed by the Philharmonic Piano Quartet Berlin.

Elfman’s Percussion Quartet commissioned for Third Coast Percussion was recorded in October 2020.  In March 2022, two of Elfman’s classical works had European world premieres: Percussion Concerto, written for, and performed by percussionist Colin Currie with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and Cello Concerto, written for, and performed by cellist Gautier Capuçon with the Vienna Symphony.  Elfman’s Percussion Concerto and Wunderkammer, a concerto for orchestra written for the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (Aug 2022), recordings were released by Sony Classical in May 2024.

Also for the concert stage, Elfman created Danny Elfman’s Music from the Films of Tim Burton live orchestral concert, which premiered at Royal Albert Hall in 2013, and has since toured around the world and won two Emmys. He also began live performances with orchestra of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas in 2015, which has since been performed around the world.

Elfman composed the music for Cirque du Soleil’s show Iris (2011) written and directed by french choreographer Philippe Decouflé. In 2019 he composed the music for the Tony Nominated Broadway production of Taylor Mac’s play Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus directed by George C. Wolfe, starring Nathan Lane.

In 2020 Elfman released his wildly ambitious double album Big Mess which combined edgy rock and symphonic strings, and followed it with the release of Bigger. Messier. – a genre-defying collection of remixed and reimagined versions of songs from the record featuring collaborations with musicians such as Trent Reznor, Iggy Pop and more. The Big Mess project culminated with his critically acclaimed career-spanning 2022 Coachella concert: From Boingo, to Batman, to Big Mess and Beyond.  He then presented an expanded version of the concert at back-to-back sold-out shows at the Hollywood Bowl in October 2022, and again in San Diego/Irvine in August 2023.  From Boingo, to Batman, to Big Mess and Beyond returns to the Hollywood Bowl on November 2nd, and travels to Shoreline Amphitheater on November 3rd this fall.

Elfman is currently scoring the film Dracula: A Love Tale for the director Luc Besson, and is working on a follow-up solo album.