ELIJA KAUFMANN

FILM COMPOSER

Music

Videos/Rescores

Credits

DAS ERBE (2022/23) feature length documentary produced by the University Gießen

BANDWAGON (2020) Animated Short, directed by Claudia Tan

CHARLIE (2019) Animated Short, directed by Chan Kuang Jun nominated at the International Festival of Animated Film Stuttgart (ITFS 2020)

Theater and Concert work:

DAS KALTE HERZ (2022) Stadttheater Gießen, directed by Mathilde Lehmann (Photo by Jan Bosch)

WEST COAST ADVENTURE (2023) A piece for Solo Horn dedicated to Manuel Moser

Biography

Elija Kaufmann is a film composer, orchestral percussionist and musical director based in Germany. He writes music for short films, documentaries, theatre productions and visual media, with his score for the animated short CHARLIE (dir. Chan Kuang Jun) receiving a nomination at the International Festival of Animated Film Stuttgart (ITFS 2020).

With a background as a professional percussionist, Elija combines organic, live-recorded percussion with orchestral writing and modern production techniques, creating cinematic scores that balance emotion, texture, authenticity, and storytelling.

He holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Classical Percussion from the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik Trossingen and has performed with renowned German orchestras and theatre ensembles for over a decade - including Stadttheater Gießen, Staatstheater Mainz, Rheinische Philharmonie Koblenz, Oper Frankfurt and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony. From 2022-2024 he was contracted as percussionist and timpanist at the Staatstheater Mainz.

Alongside his work as a composer and percussionist, he regularly serves as a keyboard player and musical director for professional musical theatre productions, bringing extensive experience in collaboration, live performance and music production to every project.

Testimonial

"Elija's music and sound design was an absolute perfect fit for the project 'Charlie'. He was able to masterfully balance between the originality of the music with the 'rag-time' music genre that was integral to the theme of the story. Perhaps the most important quality of his work, however, was his commitment towards the story. Every part of the music and sound design was carefully considered with the characters and story in mind, always matching the emotional beats of the different parts of the story. This allowed a harmonization between the visuals and the sound which allowed the immersion necessary to bring the story to life. For the team, it was an unanimous agreement that the music played the largest role in the story, which will not be possible if not for Elija."

Chan Kuang Jun, Director