Movie-music writer draws inspiration from the ivories

Nathan Wang sits in the control room behind an L.A. scoring stage, directing a recording session of the music for "She's the Man." The orchestra, conductor, director and a team of technicians listen as Wang gives the orders that will put music to the silent film playing on a movie screen in the background.

"Music is subordinate to what's happening on the screen," Wang explains. "I used to rent Charlie Chaplin silent movies, and would play the piano when I was 11 or 12, accompanying Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. That's still my same process of composing."

While he tends to keep a low profile, Wang is actually one of the most successful composers in Hollywood. Prolific and versatile, he's written music for Jackie Chan movies, Steven Spielberg documentaries, animated cartoons, opera, symphonies and more.

His latest work is the score for "She's the Man," a DreamWorks comedy released this weekend starring Amanda Bynes as a teenage girl who poses as her missing brother in boarding school, a tale of love and mistaken identity inspired by Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night."

Andy Fickman, director of the film, says Wang was his first and only choice for composer.

"Any time I have needed a musical partner in the last eight years, it's been Nathan," says Fickman, who worked with Wang on "Reefer Madness" (the stage play and Showtime film) and the independent teen comedy "Who's Your Daddy."

"He has a classical heart, but if I say, 'Let's take this into rock 'n' roll, or 1930s jazz,' he's got the ability to dive into that world easily. He's just a genius. I know I'm smarter than him, and a better dresser, but I admit that he's a genius."

A Fulbright scholar, Wang's musical journey began with classical music, when he started playing piano at age 3 with his mother's encouragement. His father soon introduced him to jazz artists, and after studying music composition with the Oxford Symphony Orchestra, he played piano aboard a cruise ship for free in exchange for two tours of the Mediterranean.

"I've always had this entrepreneurial side to me," says Wang, whose maternal grandfather owned the No. 1 Department Store in Shanghai, the first commercial building to have escalators in China. "I just have a joy of going from one project to another."

After returning home to Los Angeles, the young pianist began playing at a bar in a popular five-star restaurant, where one of his fans turned out to be a producer for the TV show "China Beach." Doors opened, and Wang eventually became a composer for that show before moving on to write for "Eek! The Cat" on Fox, then several Disney shows, DreamWorks Animation, and several Spielberg projects.

A collaboration with Hans Zimmer on the music for "The Last Days" won an Academy Award for best documentary in 1999. Over the years, Wang has received seven Dramalogue Awards for best music and sound, and last summer penned the musical "Imelda," based on the life of former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos, which had a limited run at the David Henry Hwang Theater in Los Angeles.

Along the way, he also began writing music for Asian movies and recording artists like Faye Wong (considered the Asian Madonna), winning the Singapore Grammy for his arrangement of her hit song "I'm Willing."

"I've gotten great opportunities to work on both Asian and American projects," Wang says. "Music is such an emotional part of me. It's so easy to express myself when I'm playing the piano. I really enjoy writing orchestrally because you interact with great musicians. As real as computers can sound, they can't replace live music."