ASMAC Luncheon with Nathan Wang & Mike Lang

ASMAC welcomes composer/pianist Nathan Wang with pianist Mike Lang! 

Wednesday, October 19, 2016 – 11:30am

Nathan Wang is a Chinese-American pianist and composer for Films, Television, Video Games, Musical Theater, Opera, and the Concert Stage. A prolific and versatile composer for Hollywood and Asian cinema, he has scored nearly 300 films and television shows, including projects in the U.S. for Steven Spielberg, Disney, Dreamworks, and Sony Pictures, and for Jackie Chan, PolyBona, Perfect World, China Film Group, EMP, Wanda, and Huayi Brothers in Asia. His compositions have been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Shanghai Philharmonic, Los Angeles Opera, and Chicago Symphony. Mr. Wang is a recipient of 2 Emmy Awards (Reefer Madness, Showtime 2005; Pancho Barnes, PBS 2011), a 1993 Singapore Grammy for Faye Wong’s hit song Wo Yuan Yi (I’m Willing), and is a 2014 Golden Horse Award nominee for his film score to director Ning Hao’s No Man’s Land.

At age 9 he was accepted to the University of Southern California where he studied composition with famed choral composer Morten Lauridsen, graduating with a Bachelor of Music Degree at age 13. After high school he studied at Pomona College in California, double-majoring in Music and Biology. Mr. Wang was then admitted to Harvard Medical School, but instead chose to accept a Fulbright Scholarship to attend the University of Oxford in England, where he earned a MSt in Music.

Returning to Los Angeles from England, Mr. Wang started by composing the music for China  Beach (ABC), and he soon moved on to score several other TV series including Eek The Cat (FOX), Toonsylvania (Dreamworks), and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventures (FOX).

A friendship with film director James Moll led Mr. Wang to work with Steven Spielberg, scoring several of his productions including The Lost Children of Berlin (1997), Price For Peace (2002), Burma Bridge Busters (2003), and The Last Days, on which Mr. Wang collaborated with composer Hans Zimmer, and which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1999.

Mr. Wang has since scored several more documentaries, including acclaimed aviation films One Six Right (2005) and Pancho Barnes and The Happy Bottom Riding Club (L.A. Emmy Award, 2011). In 2004, preeminent composer John Williams hand-picked Mr. Wang to work with him co-scoring John Kerry’s introductory film for the Democratic National Convention in Boston. In 2015 Mr. Wang was invited by Hans Zimmer to be part of the music team that created the score for Kung Fu Panda 3.

A partnership with director Andy Fickman, yielded Dreamworks’ She’s The Man (Amanda Bynes, 2006) and Disney box office hits The Game Plan (Dwayne Johnson, 2007) and You Again (Kristen Bell, 2010). TV producer Kevin Murphy (of Desperate Housewives fame) also tapped Mr. Wang to score his CW-TV dramas Valentine in 2008 and Hellcats in 2010.

Mr. Wang has also composed three operas with the Los Angeles Opera and Placido Domingo, in addition to many other works for opera, the symphonic stage and musical theatre (where he has received seven Dramalogue Awards for best music and sound.

DOOR INTO CHINA

After scoring Jackie Chan’s Rumble In The Bronx (1995) and The Myth (2005), Mr. Wang was invited by the Chinese government to participate in the music team to create the music for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, thus opens Mr. Wang’s career in China. Director Ning Hao’s Breakup

Buddies, which Mr. Wang scored in 2014, had the second-highest opening weekend ever in

China at US$94 Million. Ning Hao’s No Man’s Land, also a box-office success, was an official selection of the Berlin Film Festival in 2014, which got Mr. Wang his Golden Horse Award (Asian Academy Award) nomination for best music in 2014. Jackie Chan’s Chinese Zodiac 2012 (also known as CZ12) stands at 12th all-time gross in China at over US$140 Million.

Click here to check out Nathan’s website for a full bio.

Mike Lang — Focusing on piano and composition, Mike Lang received a Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Michigan. Shortly after, wining awards at the Notre Dame Intercollegiate Jazz Festival, his trio performed at The Village Vanguard in New York. Other notable teachers included Arnold Schoenberg students Leonard Stein (piano) and George Tremblay (composition).

Returning to Los Angeles, he studied with Pearl Kaufman and Lalo Schifrin, and commenced a freelance recording career in records, motion pictures and television, becoming conversant with every possible music idiom and form, including jazz, classical, pop and R&B. This versatility enabled him to build a career as an accompanist for an encyclopedic body of artists including Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Vince Gill, InSync, Milt Jackson, Lee Konitz, Diana Krall, John Lennon, Arturo Sandoval, Barbra Streisand and Frank Zappa – to mention a few.

He has recorded more than 2000 scores, working with virtually every film composer including John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, James Newton Howard, Henry Mancini, Elmer Bernstein, Hans Zimmer, with numerous screen credits for solo appearances. He has premiered jazz piano concerti written especially for him by Byron Olson and Brad Dechter.

Mike has written songs for jazz notables including Stan Getz, Fourplay, Tom Scott, Lee Ritenour and Dave Grusin, Herb Alpert, and others.  Mike has recorded a jazz CD entitled “Days of Wine and Roses: The Classic Songs of Henry Mancini”. A new recording project with David Paich is in development.

Some current credits include records with Vanessa Williams, Russell Watson, Hong Buom, Michael Bolton, and Barbra Streisand.  A few of the films he has worked on include  Seven Pounds, Hanna Montana: The Movie, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon, My Best Friend’s Girl, Dark Streets, Spiderman 3, The Reaping, and Jump.

Join us on October 19^th for a very interesting luncheon with these two great musicians!