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Screen composer Burkhard Dallwitz was born in 1959 near Frankfurt, Germany and at the age of eight began classical piano training. By thirteen he was writing songs and music and soon after was writing, arranging and performing for various musical groups.
In 1979 Burkhard travelled to Australia and a year later became a permanent resident. There he studied Music at Melbourne’s Latrobe University where he majored with Honours in Composition. Since 1984, he has worked as a composer for feature films, television and commercials.
Over the years Burkhard has been the recipient of several APRA/AGSC Screen Music Awards and nominations and in 1999, he was also awarded the Golden Globe for Best Original Score in a Motion Picture for The Truman Show. This score also won The Chicago Film Critics’ Award and the ASCAP Film and Television Award, and the soundtrack reached number two on the Billboard charts.
In 2001 he won the APRA award for Best Television Theme for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. The world renowned 385-voice Tabernacle Choir performed and recorded his theme for the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics. In 2008 Burkhard wrote the 2008 Bejing Olympics Theme for Network Seven. Chinese percussion group ‘Red Poppy’ were flown out from China especially to record the theme music, which won the Best Opening Montage at the 2008 Monaco Golden Podium Awards.
In 2004 he won the APRA/AGSC Screen Music Award for Best Music For A Television Series for CrashBurn. Burkhard also received two nominations in the 2006 APRA/AGSC Screen Music Awards for the Australian feature film The Caterpillar Wish. And in 2008 he was awarded the 2008 APRA/AGSC Screen Music Awards for Best Music for a Television Series for Underbelly and Best Television Theme (It’s a Jungle Out There).
Other recent scores have included the European feature film The Interrogation of Harry Wind, starring Klaus Maria Brandauer (‘Out of Africa’, ‘Mephisto’) and Sebastian Koch (‘The Lives of Others’, ‘The Black Book’), and the mini-series False Witness, a Screentime Production for UKTV starring Dougray Scott, Claire Forlani, Rachel Blake and Richard Roxburgh.
In 2009 Burkhard scored the second series of Underbelly: A Tale Of Two Cities and then composed the score for Peter Weir’s feature film The Way Back starring Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess and Saoirse Ronan. He also received two APRA/AGSC Screen Music Awards nominations for his work on False Witness and Underbelly: A Tale Of two Cities.
Currently he is working on Underbelly: The Golden Mile.
Burkhard has several soundtracks out on general release and lives with his family in Melbourne, Australia. He continues to work on local, European and U.S. film and television productions.
(Updated March 2010)
© Burkhard Dallwitz 2010. All rights reserved.