David Sonenberg

David Alan Sonenberg is an American music manager, and the founder of the music management company DAS Communications.

He is the producer of the Oscar-winning film When We Were Kings (1997).

Born and raised in New York[when? ], Sonenberg received a degree in Theater and Political Science at Tufts University and a juris doctor at Harvard Law School. Since 1972, he has been a licensed attorney in New York State.

Sonenberg joined the entertainment law firm of Weissberger & Frosch. There, he represented Broadway and Off-Broadway musical productions including Hair, Godspell and Cabaret.

Sonenberg then established his own law firm and began DAS Communications Ltd., a full-service management company located in New York and Los Angeles for artists in the entertainment industry. DAS's first management project, Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell, set an industry record for a debut album with worldwide record sales to date of more than 50 million. Other clients of DAS Communications have included Jim Steinman, Jimmy Cliff, Southside Johnny, Jimmy Iovine, BeBe & CeCe Winans, Keith Thomas, The Spin Doctors, Joan Osborne, Spacehog, The Fugees including Lauryn Hill, The Black Eyed Peas, John Legend, Kesha, Saraya and Indiggo. To date, artists represented by DAS Communications have written, produced, and performed recordings with sales totaling in excess of 300 million records worldwide.[citation needed ]

DAS Ventures Ltd., another of the DAS family of companies, entered into agreements with Yoko Ono and the Estate of John Lennon in 1997, which culminated in the launch of The John Lennon Songwriting Contest[citation needed ].

Sonenberg first worked on Celia Cruz and the Fania Allstars in Africa and B.B. King: Live in Africa in 1974, on both of which he worked as a producer.

1997 saw the release of Sonenberg's first film project, the acclaimed documentary When We Were Kings, about boxer Muhammad Ali, for which Sonenberg received an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. In 2002, Sonenberg produced Dance of the Vampires on Broadway.

Sonenberg has two daughters, and enjoys table tennis.

On the track "How Many Mics" from the blockbuster album "The Score" by The Fugees, David Sonenberg was mentioned by Wyclef in the lyric: So on my day off, with David Sonenberg I play golf. Run through Crown Heights screaming out, "Mazel tov!"