Dana Leong

Dana Tateo Leong (born March 4, 1980), known professionally as Dana Leong, is a 2011 Grammy Award Winning multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, US Ambassador of Music, adventurer, philanthropist & entrepreneur from the San Francisco Bay Area, who is known for mixing elements of traditional instruments such as his electric cello and trombone with electronic music and visuals.

Early life

Leong's mother, the Japanese pianist Sumiko Nagasawa, gave piano lessons with the infant Dana sleeping in her lap. Leong's violin instructor Marjorie Lin found that Leong possessed perfect pitch when he would repeatedly ask her to tune his violin.

As a teen, he studied cello under Kathleen Johnson, Julian Hersh and Irene Sharp while also studying trombone under Paul Welcomer of the San Francisco Symphony, Wayne Wallace and Dr. Arthur Barnes and Fred Berry at Stanford University and David Taylor at the Manhattan School of Music.

Leong competed in numerous music competitions before the age of 10 including Yehudi Menuhin and Junior Bach Competitions in California.

While in middle and high school, he was selected for principle positions playing both Cello & Trombone in the California All State Jazz and classical ensembles, the Monterey Jazz Festival All Star Big Band which toured Japan & California and the National Grammy High School All Star Big Band which performed at the 1997 & 1998 Grammy Awards Events with Boys II Men and on NBC's nationally televised Today Show.

At the age of 16, Leong was invited to become the youngest professor of jazz at the Stanford University Summer Jazz Workshop where he still teaches students age 12-70 styles of jazz on the topics of creative improvisation and performance.

At the age of 17, Leong and the Grammy Ensemble also performed for the Presidential Summit for Anti-Violence at Philadelphia Constitution Hall, where Presidents Bill Clinton, George Bush Sr., Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Ford and Secretary General Colin Powell signed the country's first anti-gun act affecting schools nation wide.

Also in his teenage years, Leong was invited to perform with many modern popular artists such as Ray Charles, Earth, Wind & Fire, Whitney Houston, Bjork, Sisquo, Barry White & Boys II Men.

Career

After moving to New York, while studying Jazz Trombone and Orchestral Cello at the Manhattan School of Music on a full scholarship, he continued to perform and produce with many well known musicians from the Jazz, Latin and Hip-Hop worlds such as Marc Anthony, Huey Dunbar, Horace Silver, Ryuichi Sakamoto, DJ Qbert, DJ A-Trak, Chat Hugo, Harry Belafonte, Christian McBride, The Mingus Big Band, Wynton Marsalis & the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Balkan Beat Box, Keali'i Reichel, Firewater, Chick Correa, Lila Downs, Lionel Hampton, Dave Douglas, David Taylor, Steve Coleman, Eddie Palmieri, Henry Threadgill, Claudia Acuña, Fermin Muguruza, Lew Soloff, Jason Lindner, Tony Escapa, Miguel Zenon, Dafnis Prieto, Yosvany Terry, Christian Howes and Paquito D'Rivera whom with Leong collaborated on the "Panamericana Suite" Album, which won two Grammy Awards for "Best Latin Jazz Album" and "Best Classical Composition" in 2011. Leong is a big fan of hip-hop, jazz, electronic music and film score and continues to blend and bend genre lines with his own musical compositions.

He has also performed in stage productions by Sleep No More and FELA! on Broadway, Manila's GMA Christmas Show, PBS, Canal+ Live, FIP French National Radio, NPR as well as fashion events by Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, Diane Von Firstenberg & Alexandre Herchcovitch.

In 2005, Leong opened "Life After Dark Studio", a medium sized production studio based in Harlem with satellite locations in Columbus, Ohio, and San Francisco. The studio was where Leong created 3 of his albums, "Leaving New York", "Anthems of Life" and "Dream State". The studio closed in 2016 to make bandwidth for Leong to work further with his social entrepreneurship platform TEKTONIK and open a new studio location in Shanghai, China.

During the 2007-2008 season, the Dana Leong Band was selected as the top recipient of the US State Department of Cultural Affairs's American Music Abroad music diplomacy program's US Ambassadorship and began touring the world to promote positive cultural exchanges with music. The band performed and spoke to the people of Fiji, Vietnam, Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Mexico and Washington DC.

Dana Leong Aerial Performance at Cenart Mexico

While Leong has performed a majority of the worlds top concert venues such as Carnegie Hall, Venice Biennale, Beijing Olympic Stadium, Hong Kong Sha Tin Philharmonic Hall, New York Shea Stadium and Summerstage, he has also taken music to new heights and new stages never before imagined. In 2010, he began working with an aerial production company to create performances which included Leong playing his trombone and cello whilst suspended high in the air on the side of skyscrapers and towers^[1]. Notably, he performed off the walls of Los Angeles City Hall, The Old Post Office next to the White House and the Campeche Cathedral in Mexico. That year he also became composer in residence for the Museum of Chinese in America and volunteered with world renowned violinist Midori Goto's Midori & Friends Foundation, helping craft and teach musical programs for inner city schools in the greater New York City Area.

In 2014, Leong was the first musician to bring Hip-Hop to the stage of the World Economic Forum's Summer Davos 'Meeting of New Champions' Conference in Tianjin China^[2]. He invited the worlds best turntablist DJ Qbert to join him in performing and giving interactive lecture demonstrations on the history of Hip-Hop to show musical collaboration methods as examples for world leaders to follow. The conference was attended by China's President Xi Jingpin, athlete Yao Ming, actress Yao Chen (Queen of Weibo) and 4 thousand influencers assembling to discuss solutions to global issues. Leong's duet with DJ Qbert later became a trio with painter TV host Justin Bua and the three co-created a short animated film with artist Julie Gratz entitled "Rhythm of the City"^[3] which won awards from film festivals including New York's Tribeca Film Festival.

The following winter of 2015 Leong was nominated and included into the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leader Community^[4], a group of 1000 top global influencers under the age of 40 spanning arts culture, technology, finance, science, arts culture, government policy, social entrepreneurship and family business sectors. His participation allows him to give music a voice in global dialogs addressing social, economic and political issues. He joins fellow musicians Pharrell Williams, Will.I.Am, John Legend, Bono and the late Michael Jackson alongside business leaders such as Jack Ma, Mark Zuckerberg, and Hugo Barra in a community geared towards activating positive global change.

TEKTONIK

In 2011, as a response to his family being affected by the tsunami, earthquake & nuclear disasters in Japan, Leong formed TEKTONIK, an artist collective geared towards using music as a vehicle to remediate negative effects in natural disaster and trauma stricken zones of the world.

2015 & 2016 Leong presented his TEKTONIK music celebrating the Global Teacher Prize alongside Bill Clinton and Sunny Varkey. In 2016 TEKTONIK opened a new operating arm in Shanghai, China. Shortly after, Leong and TEKTONIK presented at TEDXShanghai^[5], IPCN TV's Fashion Week(end)^[6], Shanghai Art Festival (together with famed visual artist Android Jones)^[7] and the 1st Alibaba Xin Philanthropy Conference^[8] alongside United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Alibaba Founder Jack Ma, actor Jet Li and athlete Yao Ming. Leong & TEKTONIK's performances, music videos, live streamed events have reached audiences topping 100 million. Leong is an advisory board member to The Wellbeing Project^[9] which creates wellness programs to promote smart and healthy ways to work.

Leong and TEKTONIK have since given keynote performances and speeches at the United Nations, Save The Children's Children of Tomorrow Summit^[10], TEDXShanghai^[11], Summit Series, Womankind (NY Asian Womens Center) Harvard Kennedy School, The Li Ka Shing Foundation, "Tasteful Rhythms" at Four Seasons, Asian Institute of Management 50th Anniversary^[12], H&Q Asia, AMTD-Lendit Fintech Technology Summit^[13][14] and was honored by UBS as 2017 Global Visionary for social entrepreneurship while invited to meet with Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutten.

Musical impact

As a composer, Leong has been commissioned to write themes for popular artists, World Economic Forum, Doris Duke Charitable Grants, Asian American Arts Alliance and corporates such as Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic Inaugural Space Launch, Montblanc and Infiniti.

Recently, through his work with the US State Department of Cultural Affairs and the World Economic Forum, Dana’s vision has become global. Equally at home with the melodic lyricism of Keith Jarrett and the urban poetry of the Notorious BIG and Tupac, Dana Leong is the rare artist whose vision spans every aspect of human life, from the classical concert stage to the street corners of New York City. Dana Leong believes that human connections are forged through improvisation: every culture has a form of musical improvisation, and this musical capacity for spontaneity can be translated, in the mind and ear of a musician, into other forms of human spiritual connection. We often speak of the blending of musical style. Dana Leong believes in the blending of human communities, and his music brings together the living spirit of the places he has been and the life that he has known. With an unlimited capacity for musical expression, Dana Leong seeks to extend music into a tool for international diplomacy and world harmony.

References