As composer of the Disney Animated film musical, “Wish,” among others, Dave Metzger brings passion, experience, and craftsmanship to enhance every film that he works on. He uses his extensive knowledge and love of the many timbres of the orchestra, guitars, choir, percussion, and synthesizers to create inspiring scores.
Dave has complete command of the modern cinematic orchestra, having developed an expansive, melodic style. Technically adept, he is able to compose with muscular strength, delicate beauty, and all points in between. Over a long career as a composer, arranger, and orchestrator, his credits include composing the scores for “Wish”, “Once Upon a Studio”, “Brother Bear 2” and “Tarzan 2”. He is also a highly regarded song arranger and orchestrater, having crafted the songs for many films, including the Academy Award winning “Frozen”, “Tarzan”, “Frozen 2”, “Moana”, “Wish”, and “Spirited”. Many of the songs, film soundtracks and Broadway cast albums that Dave has worked on have won Academy, Grammy, and Tony Awards – among them “Let It Go” from “Frozen”, “How Far I’ll Go” from “Moana”, “You’ll Be In My Heart” from “Tarzan”, the “Tarzan” and “Frozen” soundtracks, and the cast album from “The Lion King”. In the world of theatre, Dave was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Orchestrations for the Tony winning “The Lion King”. He also orchestrated the Broadway version of “Frozen”. Along with having worked on 11 of the 62 Disney Animated films ever produced, Dave has also worked for studios as diverse as Apple Original Films, Marvel, Sony, DreamWorks, Paramount, and Warner Brothers. Dave has a reputation for being very friendly and easy to work with. He is extremely organized, always meets deadlines, and never creates drama (aside from what you hear on screen). He is very respectful of, and is in turn well-liked, by the directors, producers, and musicians with whom he collaborates. ___________________________________________________________ Dave grew up in Corvallis, Oregon and began composing music in the 7th grade for his school choirs and jazz band. He received his degree in music from California State University at Long Beach, and did graduate work at UCLA. During this period he got his start in commercial music by working on promotional videos and the Ice Capades, as well as arranging for legendary jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson. In 1992 he began a five year stint as an arranger for “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” during which time he contributed over 200 arrangements and compositions to the show. In 1997 Dave developed a close working relationship with Grammy award-winning film composer Mark Mancina, and has arranged and orchestrated all of Mancina’s projects ever since. One of the early projects they worked on together was the Disney Broadway production of "The Lion King", directed by Julie Taymor, which won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 1997. "The Lion King" continues to run on Broadway (it is currently the 3rd longest running and the highest grossing show in history), and has also had over 30 additional companies performing worldwide. Through his work with Disney studios, he has had the pleasure of arranging music for artists such as Lin-Manuel Miranda, Phil Collins, Idina Menzel, Tina Turner, Elton John, Melissa Etheridge, John Legend, and others. Dave’s client list began expanding in 2008, and now includes composers such as Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Julia Michaels and Ben Rice, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, Alan Menken, John Powell, Hans Zimmer, Alan Silvestri, Christophe Beck, Henry Jackman, and others. In 2013 Dave was matched up with Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez to arrange and orchestrate the songs for the massive Disney hit "Frozen". The movie won the Academy Award for best Animated Feature Film, and the song "Let It Go" (performed by Idina Menzel) won for Best Song. The soundtrack from the album was #1 on the Billboard charts for 13 weeks, and sold more than 2.6 million copies. In addition, Dave also orchestrated a good portion of the score, composed by Christophe Beck. Dave has always had a deep interest in music technology, and his state-of-the-art studio allows him to create high quality demos for directors and producers. |