Winning composition: “Go Down, Death”
About David
David Das is a Grammy-nominated composer and music producer based in Los Angeles. His experience covers the range from feature films, TV shows, cartoons, commercials, trailers, and other media work, over to modern music production, choral and orchestral writing/arranging, and more. He has worked on projects for Lionsgate, Fox, Disney, DirecTV, Dreamworks, Fremantle, Intel, BBDO, HBO, PBS, TLC, Telemundo, Weight Watchers, Coca Cola, Hal Leonard, and many others.
He has composed music for dozens of TV shows, scored films (such as Lionsgate’s feature thriller The Appearing and the human trafficking drama Trafficked), worked on music teams (Jordan Peele's US, HBO's Allen v. Farrow, both with composer Michael Abels), and written and produced songs for numerous pop, rock, R&B, soul, and musical theatre artists (including Aaron Lazar's star-studded Impossible Dream). He serves as Vice President of the Society of Composers & Lyricists and Past President of the Academy of Scoring Arts.
More info can be found at: daviddas.com
When did you start composing? How would you describe your composition style?
I started creating as a young kid growing up in New Jersey. I was constantly writing songs and instrumental pieces inspired by the music I grew up with and the music I played in my school ensembles. I’ve had a really eclectic background, having grown up in pop, rock, and jazz, but then in my teenage and college years I discovered Gershwin’s jazz orchestral pieces, and that pivoted me over to the classical world, and then I grew to appreciate and love the masters.
What influences your composition style (genres, instruments, composers, etc.)?
I like to say I work with polar opposite influences: Stravinsky over here, Bruce Hornsby over there. Debussy over here, Billy Joel there. I have an affinity for the great American composers: Gershwin, Bernstein, Copland. I’m tremendously influenced by story, and by all kinds of film, TV, and game music. Writing to picture is the most unique experience I have as a creator, because it requires not just an understanding of a story and of a scene, but it requires putting your personal preferences aside to answer the question of: what music does this scene need? Sometimes the answer is big and grandiose and complex. Other times the answer is simple and minimal. Or groovy. Or weird. Music can convey story and surprise and motion and emotion in all kinds of unexpected ways. Sometimes, like you see on TikTok, it’s something familiar in an entirely different framing. Solving the riddle of the right music for the scene can be such an open question that I love challenging myself to solve it in different ways.
How do you choose texts for your pieces?
I don’t have any one set approach for that except that I look for texts that are open to broad interpretation, and texts that sit well once the words are hung on notes. Many times, I look for texts to have a natural conversational or narrative quality about them. I want the listener to be able to hear something unique when the original text gets married to new music. Best case, the text comes alive in a new way for the listener and the performer.
What do you enjoy most about composing for voices?
Voices are so versatile. It’s the most natural and the most universal instrument. To paraphrase Gusteau from Ratatouille, everyone can sing, and I think there’s something so relatable about that, even for people who haven’t had the experience or training to be more polished. I love the way Bobby McFerrin took something so fundamentally universal and made it acrobatic. I love the way Take 6 made their voices into a big band. I think we’ll be making music with our voices for as long as there are humans on this planet. Singing is expressive, and it’s communal. It’s something we can do alone to express ourselves, or together to make something unique that no one individual could ever have made by themselves.
Tell us about your piece. Is it similar to other pieces you’ve composed? What was your inspiration? etc.
“Go Down, Death” is a dramatic piece for SATB choir with a featured soprano soloist. This piece was inspired by its text, drawn from the poetry of American civil rights activist James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938), who is most recognized for writing the lyrics to “Lift Every Voice and Sing” in 1899. Among his many other accomplishments were leading the NAACP from 1917-1930, and working as professor of creative literature and writing at Fisk University (an HBCU).
The poem “Go Down, Death” is a poignant funeral sermon. Written on Thanksgiving Day, 1926, it depicts God sending his servant, Death, to bring to an old woman to heaven. Dramatic in its personalization of Death, it was the perfect vehicle to set to music, with the galloping horses of Death coming for the woman, and the interwoven themes of death, faith, pain, and divine mercy. The poem serves both as a eulogy for the deceased, and a broader commentary on the spiritual journey of the soul.
It is this multilayered expression that inspired me to set it to music. The funeral scenes bookend the piece, and separated by strategic moments of silence, connect to the journey of Death to fetch the woman.
Any social media handles, websites, or YouTube channels you’d like us to list so that people can learn more about you/your work?