DeAndre James Allen-Toole is a Los Angeles-based composer best known for his original score to Julian Higgins’ neo-Western feature God’s Country—starring Thandiwe Newton. First showing as a 2022 Sundance Film Festival Premieres selection, God’s Country has received widespread critical acclaim for many aspects, including DeAndre’s score. His other recent projects include the Disney+ docuseries Choir which premiered at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, as well as the short film Translators which won the Tribeca X Award, the PBS American Experience documentary film Ruthless: Monopoly’s Secret History, and the documentary film Unseen which premiered at Hot Docs in Toronto.
DeAndre is also known for writing additional music on multiple projects, including Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, Redfall, 4400, Citizen Ashe, Reopening Night, Four Seasons Total Documentary, Future of Work, Cat People, Pride, The People vs. The Klan, The March on Washington: Keepers of the Dream, We Are: The Brooklyn Saints, Dance Dreams: Hot Chocolate Nutcracker, Nasrin, Torn Apart: Separated at the Border, and Dragons: Rescue Riders.
Driven by a life-long love of jazz, electronic, and experimental music, DeAndre is a native Detroiter composer with an eclectic style shaped by years of playful exploration. In 2011, DeAndre began studying at Wayne State University before transferring to Columbia College Chicago, earning his B.A. in music composition in 2015. Afterward, he studied in the Columbia College Chicago Music Composition for the Screen graduate program directed by Kubilay Üner, completing his M.F.A. in 2017.
As a professional composer, DeAndre has enjoyed writing music for diverse media independently and under the employment of many senior composers in Los Angeles. Among his accomplishments, DeAndre is a Sundance Institute Film Music & Sound Design Lab alum, a Sundance Institute Interdisciplinary Program grantee, a Reel Change Film Fund grantee, and most recently, an ASCAP Foundation Michelle & Dean Kay Award recipient. He has also received past recognition as a Television Academy Foundation Summer Internship awardee, a Game Audio Network Guild Scholar, a Columbia College Chicago Graduate Merit Award recipient, and was nominated for the David Raksin Award for Emerging Talent by the Society of Composers & Lyricists.