C A T H L E E NW O N G

Composer-Arranger/Music Producer

Cathleen Wong possesses a deeply rooted passion for music, which originated in her early childhood years as a pianist and flutist. Being practical, she applied and was accepted to Cal State Long Beach as a Humanities Major. However, her fate as a musician and composer was sealed by the lack of a pencil… while registering for classes she realized she had no pencil, and no pencil meant no classes. She took it as a sign and enrolled in the University of Southern California (USC) Thorton School of Music. There she earned not only her Bachelors of Music, but her Masters of Music as well, receiving the USC Jazz Departmental Award along the way. She studied with jazz greats such as Buddy Collette, Bill Green, Gary Foster, and Thom Mason (USC). Cathleen’s classical flute training includes David Shostac (Principle flutist of the LA Chamber Orchestra) and Colin Fleming (Principle flutist of the Belfast Symphony).

During her tenure at USC, Cathleen studied all different types of traditional and ethnic woodwind instruments, quickly establishing herself as a professional multi-instrumentalist and woodwind specialist. As a freelance musician, she has performed for the John Coltrane Festival Young Artists Concert and the Long Beach Blues Festival. She was a featured soloist, collaborating with Dr. Rod Oakes, in several concerts sponsored by SCREAM (Southern CA Resources for Electro Acoustic Music) performing works by international electro-acoustic composers and has played in countless orchestras (from Broadway musicals to opera), big bands, jazz/casual combos, and top 40/party bands.

Cathleen’s talents do not stop at being a multi-instrumentalist. She is a very active composer, arranger and producer, including the score for Trail End (featuring Barry Corbin), and Spiritual Revolution (An Alan Swyer Film), the Christmas CD - Of a Child: Season of Grace (voted ‘Top Pick 2003’ by christmasreviews.com) and with Disney’s child protégé - Meghan Montenegro. Her original music most recently has been used in the shows: Rodney, Gilmore Girls, ER, General Hospital, and in the movie, For Love or Mummy. She arranged music for artist Kevin O’Neal’s Navigator album (Chameleon Records).

When Cathleen isn’t composing or performing, she is sharing her knowledge as an instructor at Los Angeles Harbor College (Wilmington, CA), Marymount College PV (Palos Verdes, CA) and at Webster University (El Segundo, CA). Some of the courses she teaches are World Music & Jazz History as well as private woodwind instruction.

Despite being a perfectionist, in Cathleen’s humble opinion, emotion is the utmost importance in the creation of a score.

E-mail Cathleen.