BIOGRAPHY

Deanna H. Choi is a Korean-Canadian composer and sound designer based in Toronto/T’karonto. She composes original music for film, TV, dance, and multimedia, and has scored the television espionage thriller series GRAY (starring Patricia Clarkson), the feature sci-fi comedy RELAX, I’M FROM THE FUTURE (starring Rhys Darby), and numerous nature documentaries. Through her company Split Brain Sound she designs soundscapes and audio systems for live theatre, concerts, and installations, having worked on over 100 shows across Canada and the United States. She collaborates with artists of all backgrounds and disciplines, premieres new works and revisits classics, and is equally at home in intimate black box studios and 1000-seat auditoriums. She has been featured in conversation twice in the journal Canadian Theatre Review, and is the recipient of the Pauline McGibbon Award for Theatrical Design. Deanna has served on numerous artist residencies including with the Canadian Film Centre’s Slaight Music Residency, fu-GEN Theatre, and the Banff Centre. Deanna, along with her artistic partner Maddie Bautista, won 2 Dora Mavor Moore Awards for their cabaret show LOVE YOU WRONG TIME, which will tour across Canada in the spring of 2024.

Fortuitously named after a Star Trek character, Deanna was initially drawn towards a career in the sciences rather than music. She pursued a degree in behavioural neuroscience with a theatre minor at Queen’s University, trading her white lab coat during the day for stage blacks at night. Her findings were published in peer-reviewed journals such as Frontiers in Psychology and Neuroplasticity, and her TEDxTalk on music’s effects on the brain has been viewed over 300K times. The study of human perception and behaviour continues to inform her artistic practice, to develop a deeper understanding of storytelling and a relationship with the audience. Her audio company, SPLIT BRAIN SOUND, is named as an ode to the dual conscious and unconscious functions of the brain. 

Also a classically-trained violinist, having performed as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player across Canada, Deanna highlights strings and orchestral textures in her work. Her influences range from Beethoven-era string quartets to the experimental likes of Mica Levi, Owen Pallett, Kronos Quartet, and Caroline Shaw. She won the gold medal in violin performance from the Royal Conservatory of Music and toured twice with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada.

Deanna is committed to teaching sound design, in particular advocating for gender minorities and racialized individuals. She teaches at the National Theatre School of Canada and actively mentors students and apprentices.

In her spare time, Deanna loves running, reading, backcountry camping, Muay Thai, and dancing badly.

critical acclaim

APPROPRIATE - “Deanna [H.] Choi and Michael Wanless’s sound design, meanwhile, feels like another character altogether.” — GLOBE AND MAIL

“…the audience waits in darkness for what feels like an eternity, listening to the disquieting din of cicadas, encircling the Lafayette estate, like the repressed family histories that have risen to the surface. (The superb sound design is by Deanna H. Choi and Michael Wanless.)” — TORONTO STAR

“…sound designers Deanna [H.] Choi and Michael Wanless conjure a tactile nighttime soundscape dominated by cicadas. This drawn-out aural cocoon demands the audience members turn their minds away from the overwhelming digital drone of contemporary metropolitan life and give themselves over to the coming art.” —NEXT MAGAZINE

A WRINKLE IN TIME - “The entire production is also heightened by Deanna H. Choi’s sound design and scoring. From the realistic opening thunderstorm and other meticulously well-timed sound effects, to seamlessly integrated voiceovers, to atmospheric sci-fi synths and cinematic underscoring of the play’s climactic scene, Choi’s work adds both atmosphere and heart.” — INTERMISSION

LAST OF THE RIGHT WHALES - “Choi’s music is captivating and goes a long way in supplementing the beautiful cinematography of the whales, the ocean, and the affecting dialogue of the researchers and advocates”. —THAT SHELF

“Well-meaning scientists, conservationists and citizen advocates explain the human-made perils facing these marine creatures, backed by lovely ocean photography and a stirring soundtrack.” —THE NATIONAL POST

THE WOLVES — “Choreographed passages between the scripted scenes are electric to watch as dynamically lit by [Jareth] Li and underscored by Deanna H. Choi’s sound design and composition. All aspects of Lancaster’s production broadcast confidence, strong decisions, esprit de corps.” — THE TORONTO STAR

TOWARDS YOUTH — “This moment is heightened by Deanna H. Choi’s sound design and an ensemble of snarling, beastlike actors swarming around [Emilio] Vieira.” — THE TORONTO STAR

THE MONUMENT — “... reflective of the way Canada’s Indigenous population must continue to live with and work alongside systems and people that hurt them. [...] with Lauzon’s effect on the senses — the smell of the sage, the sight of the red dresses and Deanna H. Choi’s sound design of women singing — she reminds us that the play, and her interpretation of it, is a monument to something much bigger than these two specific people.” — THE TORONTO STAR

IPPERWASH — “The set design (a designer isn’t specified in the program) uses sand to link the beach to the landscape of Afghanistan, and Deanna H. Choi’s sound design brings to the forefront echoes of militarized force, both overseas and from the 1995 crisis” —THE TORONTO STAR

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY — “The rot is palpable in Camellia Koo’s scenery, the two-level interior of a wooden house where the white posts and stairs are grimy with what may be fire damage and the rooms look dirty and dishevelled. The set is on a turntable whose slow, creaking movement is echoed by Deanna H. Choi’s sound design of rasping strings. You feel as if the Weston homestead is literally on the verge of falling apart.”

GRACE — “Most impactful of all, the perpetrator’s name is never uttered, replaced instead by a haunting sound effect” — NOW MAGAZINE

THIS IS HOW WE GOT HERE — “… sound design and compositions provide moments of lightness, especially in evoking a symbolic fox.” — NOW MAGAZINE

HONOUR BEAT — “The original music and vocals by Pura Fé, combined with Deanna H. Choi's sound design, created a fulfilling palate of sound to fill the silence when needed and guided the audience through a serene auditory journey.” — BROADWAY WORLD

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