ProfessorComposerProfessorBroadcasterProfessorHostProfessorWriter Dan Golding
Image credit: Michelle Grace Hunder / ABC
Dan Golding is Professor of Media at Monash University, the host of Screen Sounds on ABC Classic, and an award-winning composer and writer
Dan is the author of Star Wars After Lucas (University of Minnesota Press, 2019), and with Leena van Deventer the co-author of Game Changers (Affirm Press, 2016). He also created the soundtrack for the BAFTA, DICE, and GDCA winning Untitled Goose Game (2019), which became the first game soundtrack to be nominated for an ARIA award in history. Other composing includes the soundtracks for Mars First Logistics (2023), Push Me Pull You (2016) and the Frog Detective series, for which his score for The Haunted Island (2018) won the inaugural APRA-AMCOS Australian Game Developer award for Best Music. Dan composed the theme for the ABC's flagship podcast, ABC News Daily, as well as creating Swinburne's next_gen now audio branding.
Dan co-hosts the popular film music podcast Art of the Score, and in 2018, Dan presented What Is Music for ABC iView and Triple J with Linda Marigliano. He regularly hosts events and concerts, and has worked with every major Australian symphony orchestra to present to audiences in their thousands at the Sydney Opera House, Hamer Hall, and the Sidney Myer Music Bowl.
For over a decade Dan has written journalism and commentary for a wide variety of publications (ABC Arts, Crikey, Buzzfeed, Meanjin, Saturday Paper), and is a video essayist with more than 1 million views on YouTube. From 2014-2017 Dan was director of the Freeplay Independent Games Festival.
Composing
Dan created the soundtrack for the BAFTA, DICE, and GDCA-winning Untitled Goose Game (2019), which became the first game soundtrack to be nominated for an ARIA award in history. In 2022, his music for the game was performed live by Orchestra Victoria in collaboration with the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in one of the world's only live-to-gameplay soundtrack performances. The project was highlighted as a key case study in the 2023 National Cultural Policy, "Revive". In 2025, Dan again joined Orchestra Victoria on stage at Hamer Hall for the premiere of Untitled Concerto for Orchestra and Honk, an adaptation commissioned by the orchestra.
His most recent soundtracks include Shape Shop's Mars First Logistics (2025), and the final instalment in the widely-loved Frog Detective series, Corruption at Cowboy County (Worm Club, 2022). "Golding's ability and commitment to the theme adds a layer of seriousness to [Frog Detective] that brilliantly manages to provoke even more silliness from its charming core," writes Eurogamer. Dan's score for the first game in the series, The Haunted Island (2018) won the APRA-AMCOS Australian Game Developer award for Best Music.
Dan is also an experienced composer for podcasts, and composed the themes for ABC News Daily and The Sunday Shot. He also created Swinburne University of Technology's next_gen now audio branding, currently heard on all broadcast advertising.
Game Soundtracks
Podcast Themes
Vinyl
Broadcasting and Journalism
Dan is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster with a decade of experience in radio, podcasting, television, and print media.
Dan is heard around Australia as the host of Screen Sounds on ABC Classic, a weekly two hour-long radio show dedicated to film and television soundtracks which he has hosted across more than 300 episodes. Screen Sounds is broadcast nationally on Saturdays at 6pm. He is a regular guest on other ABC radio and TV segments.
In 2018, Dan presented What Is Music, an 15-episode TV and streaming series for ABC iView and Triple J with Linda Marigliano. Radio National commissioned and broadcast Dan's 'A Short History of Videogames' 4-part documentary series in 2014.
For over a decade Dan has written hundreds of works of journalism and commentary for a wide variety of publications (ABC Arts, Crikey, Buzzfeed, Meanjin, Saturday Paper). In 2012 he won the Lizzie Award for Best Games Journalist.
Listen to the latest episodes of Screen Sounds on demand either on the ABC Classic website or subscribe on the ABC Listen App.
Listen to every episode of the podcast Art of the Score, cohosted by Dan Golding, Andrew Pogson and Nicholas Buc, online now.
Watch all episodes of What Is Music an 15-episode TV and streaming series for ABC iView and Triple J with Linda Marigliano, now.
Listen to all four episodes of Dan's 2014 Radio National documentary series, 'A Short History of Videogames' online now.
Hosting
With conductor and composer Nicholas Buc and producer Andrew Pogson, Dan co-hosts the popular film music podcast Art of the Score, which explores in detail the art of music for the screen.
Since 2023, Art of the Score has produced and hosted live concerts that explore and celebrate the music of composers like John Williams, Hans Zimmer, and Joe Hisaishi. Dan has co-hosted sold-out concerts for all major Australian symphony orchestras, including the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Queensland Symphony Orchestra, West Australian Symphony Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, and Canberra Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Auckland Philharmonia. Find an upcoming concert here.
In 2022, Dan also hosted the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for ABC Classic at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl to a capacity crowd of 10,000 people as well as a live radio audience. He has hosted live events, talks, and panels for organisations like ACMI, Powerhouse Museum, and the Australian Chamber Orchestra.
Video Essays
In 2016, Dan made his first video essay in response to Every Frame A Painting's critique of the music of the MCU. Tony Zhou described Dan's video as "my favorite response I've ever received to anything our channel has ever done," and Fandor called the resulting dialogue "an extraordinary case study in how popular video essayists and academically trained scholars can bring out the best from each other."
Dan has made several video essays in the years since, with his YouTube channel amassing more than 1.5 million views. He has been commissioned to created video essays by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and the ABC, and has been listed multiple times on Sight & Sound's annual best video essays of the year list.
BOOKS AND PUBLISHING
Dan is the author of Star Wars After Lucas (University of Minnesota Press, 2019), the first scholarly monograph to explore politics, craft, and cultural nostalgia in the remaking of the Star Wars for a new age by the Disney corporation. Focusing on The Force Awakens (2015), Rogue One (2016), The Last Jedi (2017), and the television series Rebels (2014–18), Dan Golding explores the significance of pop culture nostalgia in overcoming the skepticism, if not downright hostility, that greeted the Star Wars relaunch. "Dan Golding’s wonderful book strikes a perfect balance between criticism and knowledgeable fandom," writes Dan Hassler-Forest, Coeditor of Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling.
In 2016, Dan co-authored Game Changers: From Minecraft to Misogyny, the Fight for the Future of Videogames for Affirm Press with Leena van Deventer. Authors Dan Golding and Leena van Deventer use their extensive experience in the videogame industry, both as players and professionals, to examine how games culture is growing, diversifying and changing for the better.
A widely-published writer and researcher, Dan has contributed to many anthologies, including Superheroes Beyond (University of Mississippi Press, 2024), The Bride of Frankenstein (PSPress, 2023), and Fandom: The Next Generation (University of Iowa Press, 2022).
SCHOLARLY RESEARCH
As Professor of Media at Monash University, Dan Golding researches and publishes media and cultural theory. For a decade prior to this, Dan was Professor and then Chair of the Department of Media and Communication at Swinburne University of Technology.
Dan has published academic work on special effects, VR, videogames, and blockbuster cinema in journals like Convergence, TEXT, Senses of Cinema, and Continuum. Recent highlights include:
Keogh, B, Golding, D, and Hardwick, T. (2023) Australian Music in Games 2023 Benchmark, Queensland University of Technology and Swinburne University of Technology, Australia.
Golding, D. (2021). "Finding Untitled Goose Game’s Dynamic Music in the World of Silent Cinema," Journal of Sound and Music in Games, 2(1): 1–16.
Golding, D. (2021). "The memory of perfection: Digital faces and nostalgic franchise cinema." Convergence, 27(4): 855–867.
Golding, D. (2021). "Great Directors: George Lucas," Senses of Cinema, 99.
Golding, D. (2020). Ennio Morricone and the Stuff of Cinema Senses of Cinema, 95.
Golding, D. (2019). "Far from paradise: The body, the apparatus and the image of contemporary virtual reality." Convergence, 25(2), 340–353.
Albarrán Torres, C. and Golding, D. (2019). "Creed: legacy franchising, race and masculinity in contemporary boxing films," Continuum, 33(3): 310-323.
Golding, D. (2018). "Writing games: Popular and critical videogame writing over time," TEXT, 49.
Selected Media
PROFILE:
Dan speaks with The Saturday Paper about his work, his music, his broadcasting, and writing.
INTERVIEW:
Dan speaks with Kirk Hamilton for an extended episode of his beloved podcast, Strong Songs.
COVER STORY:
An interview with Dan about his music for Untitled Goose Game is the cover story for Limelight Magazine's 200th issue.
FEATURE:
Dan is interviewed alongside composers Bear McCreary, Stephen Barton, and Austin Wintory for Rolling Stone magazine.