Daniel Licht

He plays instruments upside down, sideways and with human bones. Composer Daniel Licht uses instruments and techniques that can be described as “eerie” for his award-winning musical contributions for all eight seasons of Showtime’s hit drama series Dexter and his “heartfelt” touching orchestrations for the film Dumbstruck. Licht’s talents have been recognized with BMI Film & TV awards, and in 2012, Licht received the Composer of the Year award at the Third Annual Horror Awards in Moscow, Russia.

After graduating from Hampshire College, Licht began his music career in New York. While composing ad campaigns for clients such as Sony and AT&T, Licht was enticed by composer Christopher Young to pursue a film scoring career in Los Angeles. Licht began scoring independent films including Children of the Night and a series of horror films including Children of the Corn II, Hellraiser: Bloodline, and Stephen King's Thinner.

Daniel Licht gained recognition for his eclectic musical choices, which include Indian Flutes, Tibetan trombones and chanting monks. This led to an opportunity to score Cowboy Up for Academy Award-winning director Xavier Koller, and The Winner for celebrated director Alex Cox. Licht’s success in independent films led Licht to scoring Sundance favorite Gregg Araki’s film Splendor, marking the first time the director had brought in a composer. Licht was then commissioned by actor/producer Ben Stiller to score the film Permanent Midnight, for which he collaborated with the prominent electronica group, Primal Scream.

In addition to building a solid reputation as a film composer, Licht began a prolific television scoring career with Fox hit shows Oliver Beene and Kitchen Confidential, ABC’s Jake in Progress and the acclaimed PBS series American Family. Licht recently finished work on the film Half Way Home and the documentary Who Bombed Judi Bari. He is in his eighth season composing for the Showtime series Dexter and his second season for ABC’s Body of Proof. For video games, Daniel Licht has scored Silent Hill: Downpour, and recently, the award-winning game Dishonored. Licht is currently scoring the NBC series Deception and continues to score Dexter.