Gage Behnkendorf

Gage Behnkendorf is a composer and hornist based in New York, NY. Born and raised in rural Iowa, he served on active duty for four years in the United States Marine Corps as a military musician, performing in numerous concerts and ceremonies throughout the world in order to support deeply-rooted militaristic traditions and deepen domestic and international relationships with the United States military. In 2020, he traveled to the Newman Scoring Stage to perform on Hans Zimmer’s score for the United States Marine Corps commercial Battle to Belong, further deepening his love for film music and his desire to pursue it as a career. 

Gage has scored multiple short films of diverse genres ranging from animated sci-fi to drama. His orchestral score for Escape by Dolby was selected as one of the top ten best original scores in the 2020 Berlin International Film Scoring Competition. He also scored a sci-fi / horror short titled Nothing Has Changed (Dir. Carla Grace Fajardo) that was selected as runner-up in the 2022 13 Minutes of Horror film festival.

Gage has also composed multiple concert works for a variety of ensembles. His wind ensemble fanfare, Scarlet Sword, was performed by one of the ten Marine Corps field bands as a concert opener. He also received a commission to compose Daylight Dissolved, a piece for six harps to be performed by the Eastman Harp Studio. His wind ensemble piece, Seversteel, was a 2022 NYU Call For Scores selection; Gage will conduct it’s premiere in the fall of 2023.