We recently connected with Darren Huang and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Darren, so excited to talk about all sorts of important topics with you today. The first one we want to jump into is about being the only one in the room – for some that’s being the only person of color or the only non-native English speaker or the only non-MBA, etc Can you talk to us about how you have managed to be successful even when you were the only one in the room that looked like you?
At the age of fifteen, I moved across the globe from Beijing to New Jersey, in search of a more open educational system that would allow freedom in my artistic expression. Soon after my first semester began at the private catholic high school in NJ, I realized just how drastically different everything would turn out to be from the culture I grew up in. People’s behaviors, beliefs, body language, sense of humor, food, music, and even their aesthetics were all completely unfamiliar to me. Within the span of a few weeks, I find myself stuck in an environment where I was the only person that looked like me – on my school bus each morning, in jazz band rehearsals, and in basketball tryouts.. Everywhere I went, I felt others’ eyes on my neck, as if to put me under scrutiny for a crime I never committed.
Moreover, I couldn’t fully understand the language as the teachers would speak very fast and use phrases and expressions that I have never come across in the past, given the lack of foreign language education offered back home. Not before long, my grades began to decline because I simply couldn’t understand what was going on..
And that’s when I decided to bring a notebook with me everywhere I went to jot down what I heard during the day – just so I could translate them once I returned to my host family’s place after school. I would then mimic the pronunciations of each phrase and try to find an “equivalent” reference in Chinese culture. Day by day, my vocabulary grew at the speed of light, and I slowly began to lose my accent in conversational English.
That said, I concluded that the only way for me to overcome my fate of being ostracized was to master the official language of my newfound environment, thus allowing the potential to develop a deeper understanding between myself and those who were local to that environment. The more I gained fluency in the spoken and body language, the more I felt comfortable breaking out of my shell to befriend others, and to my delight, I quickly made friends with those who were open to learning more about me and ultimately accepting me for who I was and in all my vulnerability.
As I continuously foster relationships and build my own community throughout my 11 years in the US, I find myself returning to this conclusion – in order to be effective in an environment when I’m the only one in the room that looks like me, I must find a way to communicate to the others that there are ultimately much more we share in common than the differences in our appearances. I must inspire others to reach a deeper understanding of who I am, and convince them to not judge a book by its cover because they would miss out on all the beautiful wisdom it can offer. And of course, the author of that book would have to understand how to write in the same language as those who are reading it.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
In 2018, I participated in a summer internship at Hans Zimmer’s production company based in Santa Monica which inspired me to ultimately decide on a career path in composing. Three years later, in 2021, I graduated from Eastman School of Music with a masters in film scoring and promptly moved to LA, given my composer mentor, Jeff Beal’s (House of Cards, Monk) generous offer for me to live in his musical mansion in Agoura Hills from 2021 to 2022.
Since the move to LA, I was able to connect with filmmakers from USC, UCLA, Chapman University, NYFA, Columbia University and NYU, whose films I composed music for entered film festivals worldwide, including NewFest (US), Documenta (Germany), New Era (China) and more. It’s a surreal feeling to hear my work being played in a theater with hundreds of people in the audience, who’d come up to me and share how much they enjoyed the score and how it impacted their viewing experience. After each screening, I often get invited to speak at the Q&A, where I get to share my approach to film scoring and my story as a multicultural composer.
Aside from scoring narrative film, I’ve also composed music for commercials produced by known brands such as Adidas, Converse, and Bottega Veneta. Perhaps the most exciting collaboration I had so far was when Wang Kar Wai’s (Chungking Express) producing team invited me to compose music for a Nike short documentary – what’s even cooler is that my very first draft was approved and eventually used in their commercial release (a rare case in the film scoring business).
For now, I’m planning on starting my own film scoring company to outsource parts of the production to fellow composers who are looking to assist on bigger projects, and in the meantime, I’d love to continue connecting with like-minded directors and work on more narrative projects, whether it’s a feature or short film. My goal is to start composing for narrative feature films or TV series by the end of 2024, and perhaps find an agent/manager in LA (in addition to my wonderful agent who’s currently in NY) who could help expedite my process of landing larger scale projects. That said, please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have a film that is in need of a score, or if you’d like to learn more about my music in general!
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Interpersonal Skills
At the end of the day, the opportunities will not fall on your doorstep as some might believe; and even if it does, what happens next? How do we stay relevant as freelance artists? I think part of the answer is interpersonal skills – knowing how to manage relationships, how to be an enjoyable presence, and how to cater your communication style to who you’re speaking to. Practice makes perfect, and I believe that we’re always just a few connections away from the “right” one, so don’t hesitate to put yourself out there and practice as often as you can!
Resilience
Having chosen to be in a volatile industry with cutthroat competition, I often remind myself that it’s not always the most skilled, yet it’s almost always the most resilient, that rise to the top of the industry while others get slowly weeded out by the limited opportunities and the reality of survival. That said, I believe there can be many approaches to staying resilient, and the most effective is to take care of your physical and mental health while marching through the turbulent path of an artist. For instance, I try to balance my schedule with activities that will bring my mind back to the present as opposed to stressing about the future. A 15-minute breathing meditation always brings joy and peace to my day, and an hour-long basketball game here and there keeps my body in shape, allowing me to sit through long hours (with hourly breaks!) of composing or editing without the physical complications of a somewhat sedentary lifestyle.
Wellness & Compassion
Compassion seems to be so underrated in our society. And by compassion, I don’t mean the occasional favor you might do for a friend, but rather how you might feel when your artist friend gets the opportunity that you missed. How do you work with the emotional turmoils that come with the ups and downs of our journey as emerging artists? For me, the magic lies within our emotional awareness. Are we aware of how we’re feeling about certain situations and our circumstances? Can we address those emotions in a timely manner so that we can move on without the weight of negativity? We can all be small-minded at times, especially when we’ve tunnel visioned into our careers and become self-absorbed in our own creative bubble. That said, putting in the time to reflect and do the inner work is crucial to developing your emotional awareness and your compassion for others. At the end of the day, if we can think and behave with compassion, we’d stop obsessing over feelings of jealousy and the need for comparison, and we’d spend more time focusing on ourselves instead.
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment by Thich Nhat Hanh.
Two of my favorite analogies and pieces of truth he shared:
• “A flower is made of non-flower elements: the sunshine, the soil, the oxygen, the space and time to grow.”
We’re no different as our identity is made of various “non-us” elements, and in order to manifest who we want to become, we must let go of self-judgment of our current, premature identity and simply work on gathering those elements that will help us bloom.
• “A wave never tries to become a part of the ocean, it knows it already is the ocean.”
I sometimes find myself questioning my progress and wondering why I’m not where I want to be, then I’d return to this pithy quote and realize that as a wave, I am already made of the same essence as the ocean, and as I aspire to catch onto a bigger wave, I don’t need to ever feel less than the ocean.
Contact Info:
- Website: darrenhuangmusic.com
- Instagram: darren_huang_
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/darren.huang.712/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darren-huang-642391293
- SoundCloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/cQ6e3
- Other: Photography Website: https://www.darrenesque.com/
Image Credits
Bobby Cheung Dominic Leano Carrisa Lewis Liying Zhao
