Matt Dahan’s music career started with an abandoned upright piano and a Talkboy tape recorder in the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts. Today, his music has been performed or synced onto nearly every medium – from scoring stages in Los Angeles to off-Broadway theaters in New York City, from the Academy Awards shortlist to the top of the Billboard Cast Albums chart.
The passion to write for all media led Matt to Berklee College of Music, where he honed his craft alongside the best musicians in the world. His ability to compose for any genre opened the door to work in film scoring, theatre writing, and music directing. The movie-musical How Sweet It Is - for which Matt's score and original songs were recognized with three semifinalist positions at the 86th Academy Awards - proved to be a watershed moment. He would go on to co-write the song "Beyond the Shore", featured in the Oscar nominated film CODA, which garnered a Hollywood Music in Media award for Best Song (Independent Film) and a place on the 94th Academy Awards shortlist.
Realizing that musicals were the place where movies and songwriting met, Matt dove headfirst into the field. After contributing songs and score to the series Break: The Musical - a project that earned him the Indie Series Award for Best Soundtrack - he teamed up with playwright Kelly Lynne D'Angelo to create live stage musicals. This partnership lead to an adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo (music; LA: Hollywood Fringe Festival), and Starry - based on the lives of Vincent and Theo van Gogh (music/lyrics; LA: Rockwell Table & Stage, NYC: 54 Below). His melodies can also be heard in The Babies (Off-Broadway: St. Luke’s Theatre) and The Adventures of Peter Cottontail (LA: Theatre West).
Matt became music director for the cross-platform theatre company Team Starkid (A Very Potter Musical, Starship) in 2018. Since joining, he has produced for records three Billboard Top-Ten Cast Albums (Nerdy Prudes Must Die: #1; Black Friday: #1; The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals: #6), and a BroadwayWorld.com regional award for Best Music Director (LA: The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals).
Matt currently has several new stage and screen projects in the works, and is always up for a new adventure. If you look closely, among all of the musical instruments and recording equipment Matt has in his Los Angeles studio, his original Talkboy is still there.
