biography & creative practice

Jeff Tang is a composer and creative producer with a deep delight in cross-pollinating disciplines and an ambition to agitate the cultural-historical narrative. His workfellows include musicians, poets, filmmakers, artists, architects, scientists, and jugglers.

As a composer, his music theater work has been performed in New York, London, Minneapolis, and Chicago. Commissions include NYC's Leviathan Lab, the NYU Write/Act Festival, Music Institute of Chicago, Theatre Latte Da in Minneapolis, and St. Ann's School in Brooklyn. Working with The Mashup Americans, he’s scored podcasts for Reese Witherspoon’s production company, Hello Sunshine; Rainn Wilson’s SoulPancake; and People’s Action Network. Jeff has been a Summer Labs Artist in Residence at National Sawdust, a Composition Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, a Resident Artist at Sokoloff Arts, and an alumnus of the New Dramatists Composer-Librettist Studio, Prospect Theater Company's Musical Theater Lab, and the PlayLabs Festival at the Playwrights Center.

As a creative producer, he’s the co-founder of Real Magic and the Executive Creative Producer for … (Iphigenia), a new opera created by multiple Grammy Award-winning jazz icons Wayne Shorter and esperanza spalding, featuring scenic design by luminary architect Frank Gehry. For the Kennedy Center, he executive produced Renew/Remix and Sound Heals as part of the Sound Health initiative, a partnership with the National Institutes of Health, NEA, UC San Francisco, and soprano Renée Fleming to promote the intersection of music, health, and well-being. With Elena Park’s Lumahai Productions, he’s been a consulting and content producer for groundbreaking digital programming for the San Francisco Opera’s Webby Award-winning In Song series and the Cleveland Orchestra’s In Focus; and he helped create Active Hope, a new podcast series with The Apollo Theater, The Kennedy Center, and National Sawdust; he was also the Associate Producer for NationalSawdust+: performance and conversation in Brooklyn.

At the Metropolitan Opera, his producing portfolio included the Peabody award-winning international Live in HD and radio broadcasts, the outdoor Summer Recitals and Summer Live in HD festival in Lincoln Center Plaza, and the annual Opening Night in Times Square live broadcast. He was a catalyst for the Met’s public programming, audience engagement, and social impact initiatives.

He serves on the Equity Committee of the newly-formed Creative & Independent Producer Alliance (CIPA), and is a proud member of Peoplmovr, a creative studio specializing in involvement that centers anti-racism and equity in its commitment to collective liberation.

email | jeffctang@gmail.com