Tony Zheng

LATEST NEWS

Hi friends, I’ve recently participated in the 1st edition of the Indie Game Music Contest. I would like to share my submissions of my music demos to the games Elengard: Ascension by Stèphano M. M. G and Cat Survivors by Nieve Studios. It was a fun experience to compose adaptive music for two games with distinctive styles, a technical challenge for me to create music that really fit the games. The result of the contest would be revealed in late December, meanwhile I hope you enjoy the music I created for these games!

Elengard: Ascension is a medieval fantasy RPG with a theme of “ascension”, focusing on combat and character building from zero to hero.

Cat Survivors is a “survivors” type game, with the twist of being cat themed. The dopamine-inducing gameplay of a “survivors” type game involves pitting waves of mobs against the player character, usually accompanied by a headbanging soundtrack to each of its levels.

VANITAS is an game soundtrack album composed for the annual OST Composing Jam #7. The theme for the jam is “Inside my world”. The album placed 26th out of 648 entries in contestants’ voting. Check out the jam on: https://itch.io/jam/ost-composing-jam-7

Subconscious is defined by the part of one’s mind that is not fully awake but which influences their actions and feelings. VANITAS is an adventure game following the profound and humbling journey of an aspiring artist girl inside her troubling mind to become a successful artist. The OST album aims to tell a seven-part story of how the girl sinks into her own subconscious world filled with her artistic imaginations, and through a series of encounters with her past failed and unfinished creations, learns to overcome her paralyzing pride that hinders her creative output and embark on the path to become a better artist.

a journey inside the world of great beyond

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Dear friends, I’ve recently completed a live remote recording session of my orchestral score to the Yo Yo Flamingo animated scene in Disney’s 1940 film Fantasia. The score was recorded with the Budapest Symphony Orchestra via Musiversal in a 20 minutes timeframe as part of the shared session with 11 other talented NYU scoring graduates. I was blown away the outstanding musicianship of everyone at BSO for navigating the score in such a short time. With this experience working with the musicians in Budapest remotely, I am confident of the potentials to conduct more remote recording sessions in the future to elevate my music toward a new height! Stay tuned for more future project!

TONY ZHENG | composer

TONY ZHENG is a composer based in Los Angeles whose music spans concert works, films, animations, video game scores, multimedia installation artworks, and music production and technology. His sound is defined by a flowing sense of elegance, balancing lushness and gravity, a subtle handling of timbre and resonance, and visceral dramatic impact. His musical languages range from instrumental solos to orchestral suites, spanning genres across romantic concertos to contemporary classical, jazz, and pops. His electronic music and sound design is galvanized by the cutting-edge aspects of the Drum and Bass world. He is widely recognized by his peers and mentors as a talented musician with great musicality and technicality whose works are innovative, incorporating contemporary extended techniques and production technology.

Born in Shanghai, China, he is a classically trained pianist who began playing at the age of five. After moving overseas to the U.S. in 2014 to further his academic pursuits, he won first prize in the New England Young Artist Piano Competition, a testament to his musicianship. He received his bachelor degree with summa cum laude honors, majoring in economics and music, from University of Rochester in 2022, where he studied under award-winning faculty members Robert LaVaque and Stephen Roessner. He finished his master degree in Music Theory and Composition: Screen Scoring at New York University Steinhardt, mentored by Professor Mark Suozzo.

During his education, he collaborated with student directors at NYU Tisch on a number of short films including “What’d I miss,” and worked with game developers at NYU Game Center extensively on interactive music production. His collaboration efforts also extend to installation arts. In 2021, he produced the accompanying music for multimedia artwork titled “On Chinese Gardens” and a large-scale glass installation titled “Lucid Water and Lush Mountain” in The Grand Halls in Shanghai.