Dascha Dauenhauer

It was clear from an early age that music would be the defining element in Dascha Dauenhauer’s life. The Moscow-born composer began composing and playing the piano at the age of five and was taught in Composition by Igor Shatkovsky at the Moscow Music Conservatory as a child. After the family moved to Berlin, Dauenhauer attended at the “Academy for exceptionally gifted children and young people” and was accepted as a young student at the “Hanns Eisler” Academy of Music in Berlin at the age of twelve. She also received composition lessons at the Julius Stern Institute. During this time, Dauenhauer was already composing her own pieces, and her orchestra piece “Sinfonietta” celebrated its world premiere at the Berlin Philharmonic in 2004. In 2006 Dascha Dauenhauer began her diploma studies in music theory at the UDK Berlin and subsequently studied in the master’s programme in film music at the Film University Babelsberg. Dascha Dauenhauer has been working as a film composer since 2015, collaborating on numerous feature films as a composer and music producer. The film Jibril (by Henrika Kull) had its premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2018, just like Burhan Qurbani’s celebrated work Berlin Alexanderplatz in 2020. „Evolution" by Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó - was selected for Cannes International Film Festival 2021. Dascha Dauenhauer can already look back on an award-winning career: in 2018 she was nominated in three categories for the German Film Music Award and won in the category „Best short film“ and „Newcomer“. In 2020, she won the German Film Award as well as the European Film Award for her music for BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ. In 2022 she received the GEMA Music Authors’ Prize in the category Composition Audiovisual Media and received the prestigious Best Music-Award for the Series „Souls“ at the Cannes International Series Festival. Most recently, Dascha Dauenhauer composed the music for the ZDF series “The Swarm”, which was premiered in February 2023 at the International Film Festival in Berlin as well as the Film „Golda“ (starring Helen Mirren) directed by Guy Nattiv.