Teacher Profile: Nawon Jang
About Nawon Jang
Nawon Jang started playing the piano when he was five years old. He always had the opportunity to hear great music in the church and after being surrounded with singing and playing music in that community, he knew that music was a gift to everyone who can enjoy and appreciate it.
When Nawon came to the United States from South Korea, he began taking private violin lessons at the age of ten. He played through the school orchestras from middle school to high school. While in his teenage years, Nawon heard jazz music and the guitar was such a fascinating instrument that he had no hesitation in taking up the guitar and played in a jazz ensemble at school. Soon enough, he realized that he needed to take private lessons with a local jazz guitarist and then auditioned for music colleges and got accepted to the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Although Nawon had a deep love for playing jazz guitar, he began to develop a passion for writing music especially for film and the arts. From many movies that Nawon had seen growing up in U.S., he realized that the score was a captivating source that brought life to the movie. After his short time in Philadelphia, Nawon transferred over to Berklee College of Music in Boston and majored in Film Scoring.
During his years at Berklee, he had many opportunities to play both guitar and violin in sessions, live gigs, and in the orchestra. There were great moments while playing with the Berklee Contemporary Symphonic Orchestra with legendary jazz musicians such as John Patitucci, Danilo Perez, and Joe Lovano. Along with film composing and playing in orchestras, Nawon continued to learn and develop his own sound on the guitar. He studied for several years with Jon Wheatley, an amazing jazz guitarist/professor at Berklee.
After graduating from Berklee, Nawon continued to write music, and lead music in the church where he had served for a decade. Also, during the many years of studying music, he taught private lessons with students ranging from 8 years old to retired adults in their 60s. Currently, Nawon is working as the Associate Director of Worship and Arts at the University Presbyterian Church in Seattle. He is still writing music for various types of media content as a freelancer composer. His most recent works have been showcased in interactive museum exhibitions in South Korea in 2022. Nawon is extremely excited to be working with Lessons In Your Home because he knows how important it is to create a space to learn music and to enjoy it while doing it! Nawon believes that anyone can learn an instrument and enjoy music by positive learning experience with good communication and lots of encouragement. And again, at the end of the day, Nawon would always say, “Wasn’t that fun? Let’s do that again!”