Tim Davies Biography
Tim Davies leads a very busy musical life. Born and educated in Australia, now based in Los Angeles, the Grammy-nominated and Annie-winning musician splits his time between orchestrating for features, television, and video games; composing his own scores; and conducting and arranging for orchestras all around the globe.
His film and TV credits as lead orchestrator and/or conductor include Frozen and Frozen 2, all three Ant-Man movies, The Bob’s Burgers Movie, Shazam: Fury of the Gods, The Lego Movie 2, La La Land, Trolls, The Peanuts Movie, The Croods: A New Age, Free Guy, and WandaVision. He also has numerous conducting and orchestration credits in the world of video games, having worked on multiple titles from the God of War, Infamous, Sims, Ratchet and Clank, Resistance and Batman franchises, Marvel’s Spider-man, The Last of US, and Halo: Infinite. A full list of credits can be found on IMDB. He is currently lead orchestrator for Christophe Beck, Mark Mothersbaugh, and Fil Eisler. When not on the scoring stage, Davies can be found on the podium conducting orchestras in concert halls and other live venues specializing in film scores live to picture. Recent engagements include the Blackstar Symphony featuring Donny McCaslin with the Charlotte Symphony and Aladdin with the Evergreen Orchestra in Taiwan.
Davies has also scored several high-profile projects himself. He has special relationships with Mexican directors Jorge Gutierrez and Guillermo del Toro. He recently scored Gutierrez’s Maya and the Three, receiving the Annie Award for best score, and previously collaborated with two-time Oscar winner Gustavo Santaolalla to score The Book of Life. He also received an Annie nomination for his work scoring Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia, executive produced by del Toro, and contributed additional music for Crimson Peak. In 2019 del Toro asked him to produce and conduct a concert of scores from his movies with the Jalisco Philharmonic in his home town of Guadalajara, Mexico. Their most recent collaboration was the first episode, Lot 36, of the anthology series Cabinet of Curiosities. Some of his collaborations with Gustavo Sanaolalla from the The Last of Us can be heard in HBO’s adaptation of the game.
Davies is an active pop and jazz arranger as well. Highlights include arranging and playing drums for the twentieth anniversary concert of NAS’ Illmatic and being lead arranger for Kendrick Lamar’s performance of To Pimp a Butterfly, both featuring the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Other collaborations with the NSO have included shows with Ledisi, Common, Maxwell, Kenny ‘Babyface’ Edmonds and Ne-yo. He enjoys a close relationship with the Metropole Orchestra in the Netherlands and has recently written for concerts featuring Donny McCaslin, Cory Henry, and Ibeyi. He has contributed arrangements for several recent BBC Proms concerts including concerts for Moses Sumney and Paul Weller. He has been on the arranging team for the several Academy Awards Ceremonies and has written string arrangements for Amy Winehouse, Miguel, Cee Lo Green, Akon and most recently Robbie Williams’ album “25.” His own group, the 18-piece Tim Davies Big Band, has received two Grammy nominations for Best Instrumental Composition.
In 2013 he launched his orchestration blog, www.debreved.com, which has since become an important resource for composers and orchestrators.
