"I mean this: Pro-rated, considering that this 17-year-old [composer/writer] had spent comparatively few days on this planet, Prom was the best musical I'd ever read."
On June 3, 2011, Derrick Wang gave a guest lecture at the Shanghai American School Performing Arts Center, addressing the application of musical analysis to contemporary theater and pop music. Topics covered included repetition and development in Stephen Sondheim’s score for Into the Woods and contrapuntal writing in Max Martin’s songs for Britney Spears. The lecture concluded with a rousing singalong rendition of “Oops… I Did It Again.”
Derrick Wang leads an analysis of "Ever After," from Stephen Sondheim's score for Into the Woods, at the Shanghai American School Performing Arts Center
Derrick Wang will be a featured guest speaker at the 25th Anniversary of the CENTERSTAGEYoung Playwrights Festival on Monday, May 2, 2011 at 7 pm. He will address the value of dramatic writing in contemporary society.
Derrick Wang is an alumnus of the CENTERSTAGE Young Playwrights Festival, having previously won a staged reading for his musical Prom.
For more information about the CENTERSTAGE Young Playwrights Festival, visit the YPF website.
Derrick Wang will be featured as composer, lyricist, and pianist at the York Theatre Company’s NEO7, a benefit concert celebrating “New, Emerging, Outstanding” musical theater writers. NEO7 will take place Monday, May 16, 2011 at 7:30pm at Saint Peter’s Theatre in New York, NY.
Derrick Wang will appear in person to perform a selection from his musical Prom with a vocalist to be announced at a later date. A champagne and dessert reception will follow the performance.
For tickets, call (212) 935-5824, ext. 215.
For directions, visit the York Theatre Company’s website.
For more information about NEO7, visit the York Theatre Company’s website.
Award-winning pianist Jeannette Fang will perform Derrick Wang’s Sonatina at the Yale School of Music on Friday, October 22, 2010 at 5pm EST. The performance will be streamed live to the public via the Yale School of Music’s website.
Derrick Wang has been named a winner in the 58th Annual BMI Student Composer Awards, which “recognize superior creative talent” in music composition.
Eleven (11) winners were chosen from throughout the Western Hemisphere. All works were judged under pseudonyms.
Derrick Wang’s BMI award-winning work is the one-act opera ISH.
Awards Chair Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, BMI President and CEO Del Bryant and BMI Foundation President Ralph N. Jackson presented the awards at a reception held on May 14, 2010 at the Jumeirah Essex House Hotel in New York City.
Derrick Wang has been chosen to receive a BMI Foundation Pete Carpenter Fellowship, which gives aspiring TV and film composers the opportunity to work with the eminent composer Mike Post (NYPD Blue, L.A. Law, Law and Order) at his studio in Los Angeles.
On March 26, 2010, Derrick Wang performed as the featured guest at NYU’s YUAN 10: MOT10N, a benefit for the China Care Foundation, which provides medical care to orphaned children in China. [click to continue…]
Derrick Wang has been selected as a Resident Artist for American Lyric Theater’s 2008-2009 Composer/Librettist Development Program (CLDP), the nation’s only operatic young artist program dedicated to writers. [click to continue…]
Derrick Wang’s Valley, Mountain, Sky, an orchestral piece based on Chinese folk songs, was premiered by the Yale Philharmonia to a sold-out house at Beijing’s Forbidden City Concert Hall on July 22, 2008. On July 25, 2008, it received its Shanghai premiere at the Shanghai Grand Theatre.
Derrick Wang is named winner of the American Modern Ensemble’s Third Annual Composition Competition for his work Hors d’oeuvres for clarinet and piano.