Danielle Furst is an award winning Film and Television Composer
A classically trained pianist born into a musical home in Boston, MA, Danielle spent the first three decades of her life working in the music industry, under the tutelage and mentorship of her late father, Jeffrey Furst, an accomplished jazz pianist, composer, and music theorist.
Her composing career began in 2010 when she scored her first feature film, “Dirty Old Town.” Shortly after, Danielle paired up with composer and multi-instrumentalist producer Khari Mateen to score the feature film “Houses” starring Nick Sandow, Michael Imperioli, and John Ventimiglia.
This began a prolific partnership with Mateen. The two collaborated with New York based production hub ‘The Cinemart’ in scoring premium documentaries starting with the Peabody Award winning series “Time: The Kalief Browder Story” which aired on Spike TV in 2017. This was followed by the Emmy nominated series “Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story”, which aired on Paramount TV in 2018. Both six-part docuseries were executive produced by Shawn “Jay Z” Carter.
Other hits that Danielle and Khari scored (directed by Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason) include the Hulu original Emmy Nominated Documentary, “Fyre Fraud”, Netflix Original Series “The Pharmacist,”, Amazon Prime Original Series “LulaRich”, IMDb original series “Bug Out” and most recently, Netflix Original Series “Murdaugh Murders: a Southern Scandal” which earned Danielle a BMI Film, TV & Visual Media Award in 2024.
Danielle is a proud member of The Television Academy, The Society of Composers and Lyricists, and The Alliance for Women Film Composers. She also serves on the board of Incite, a Los Angeles based premium content studio. A complete list of Danielle’s work can be found on her IMDb page:
News
Composers Find a Tempo for True Crime With ‘Murdaugh Murders,’ ‘Madoff,’ ‘Crime Scene’ Scores
By Tim Greiving On Variety.com
Every composer who scores a true crime series is dealing with ghosts. Their challenge is to help make a show riveting, dramatic — even entertaining — while trying not to exploit a real tragedy with real victims.
For Danielle Furst and Khari Mateen, the composers behind “Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal,” an added challenge was writing music knowing that the families and friends of victims would likely be watching.
“Every time we were working on it, I was thinking about the parents,” says Furst, “listening to what was behind their testimonies and their story and wanting them to feel good about it.”
At the heart of “Murdaugh” is the death of Mallory Beach, a teenager whose death in a boating accident instigates a series of other calamities and murders.
It was a big responsibility,” Furst says.
Then there are all the usual scoring considerations of tempo, orchestration and mood. Furst found a hurdy-gurdy, an old hand-cranked string instrument, and used it to create drones throughout.
