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David Hirschfelder Biography
David Hirschfelder is recognised globally as one of Australia’s most distinguished screen-composers, having garnered Oscar nominations for Scott Hicks' Shine and Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth. He is also the winner of two BAFTA (British Academy) awards for Strictly Ballroom and Elizabeth.
David’s other acclaimed film-score credits include Zack Snyder's animated feature Legend of the Guardians; Jocelyn Moorhouse’s The Dressmaker, starring Kate Winslet; Rachel Griffith's Ride Like a Girl, starring Sam Neill; and Escape from Pretoria, starring Daniel Radcliffe.
Concert works include Eternity for orchestra, choir and 1000 tap-dancers (commissioned for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games Opening Ceremony), Mixed Doubles for string quartet (2004 Adelaide Fringe Arts Festival), and To a Child for soprano and string quartet, recorded and released in 2016 by Katie Noonan and The Brodsky Quartet. In 2018 David completed another commission for Katie Noonan and the Australian String Quartet, setting music to a poem titled No More Boomerang, by indigenous artist Oodgeroo Noonuccul.
2024 saw the release of Jocelyn Moorhouse's comedy The Fabulous Four starring Susan Sarandon and Bette Midler, featuring a multi-faceted score composed by David with his son Sam. Later that year, David received an APRA-AGSC Soundtrack-of-the-Year nomination for Sleeping Dogs starring Russel Crowe and Karen Gillan.
Early 2025 saw the digital release of an album of contemporary art music titled UNFOLD 缘启 – marking David's first collaboration with internationally acclaimed Guzheng virtuoso Mindy Meng Wang. Later in the same year, David collaborated once again with his son Sam, co-composing an 80-minute score for the documentary feature But Also John Clarke, which premiered at the 2025 Melbourne International Film Festival.
