Early life
Alexander Lee-Hom Wang was born in Rochester, New York, the second among 3 boys. At the age of six, Wang began to take violin lessons. He attended Jefferson Road Elementary School, Pittsford Middle School, then later Pittsford Sutherland High School in the town of Pittsford. Wang graduated from Sutherland High School with high honors and as class valedictorian.
Scoring a perfect 1600 on his SAT's, Leehom had the opportunity to go to various elite universities such as Yale and Princeton and ended up choosing Williams College for its excellent music program, where he graduated with honors majoring in Music and minoring in Asian Studies. While in college he sang for a campus acapella group, Springstreeters. He continued his studies by attending Berklee College of Music's Professional Music program, with voice as his principal instrument.
In 1995 he was signed to a professional recording contract while visiting his grandparents in Taiwan. Since then, Wang has become one of the new songwriters and musicians revolutionizing the Chinese-language music industry. He is active in all areas of music production, from composing to , to , to , to directing his own music videos.
Although he did not begin learning until he was 18, Wang is now fluent in Mandarin in both speaking and writing and has written many of the lyrics for his songs. Wang plays over 10 musical instruments. In his albums and live concerts, Wang can be heard playing piano, , guitar, , violin, vibraphone, erhu, xun, and more.
A classically trained music background enables Wang to pull from a variety of musical styles and continuously reinvent his own sound that is distinctly Chinese and western at the same time. For example, his 2005 release, '''' drew heavily from , dance pop, and the musics of Chinese ethnic minorities of Tibet, Mongolia, and Yunnan.
Journey as an Artist
1995–1997: Modest beginnings
In 1995, during a summer trip to Taiwan, Wang's music talent was discovered. His debut album ''Love Rival Beethoven'' was released by BMG Music in the winter of 1995, and received little limelight.
He was asked to leave his college study to pursue a full time singing career in Taiwan. Wang insisted to stay on to finish school, and at the same time, he was able to convince Decca Records to include some of his own writings in his next album. One of his writings became the title song or zhuda for his second album ''If You Heard My Song'' . Wang continued his study at Williams College, and released ''Missing You'' during winter break of 1996 and ''White Paper'' during summer of 1997. His music breakthrough did not come until a year later when ''Revolution'' was released after his graduation from Williams.
1998–2002: ''Revolution''
After graduating from college, Wang was able to devote his full attention to his music career. He signed with Sony BMG Taiwan and released his fifth album, ''Revolution'' on August 21, 1998. The album became a huge success and won him numerous notable awards including Best Producer of the Year and Best Male Vocalist of the 10th Golden Melody Awards in 1999. He was just 22, making him the youngest person ever to win the award in either of the two categories.
His sixth album ''Impossible to Miss You'' was released 10 months later. It was just as successful as his previous album. Although he was nominated again for Best Male Vocalist at the 11th Golden Melody Awards he did not win the award this time. However, the interesting style of music Wang had incorporated in this album had attracted many new fans. Since his release of ''Revolution'', each album Wang produced conveyed different styles of music and sounds, attracted numerous fans from different regions in Southeast Asia.
Although raised in New York, Wang always felt the deep root in his Chinese heritage. He started to incorporate Chinese sounds into his music. In his seventh album, Wang remade a popular Chinese song "Descendants of the Dragon" to include in his seventh album '''' . The song raised the pride of the young Chinese generation, soon became a must-sing song in all of his concerts.
His eighth album, '''' marked the height of his star career. "The One and Only" became his signature song. The song has won him over 7 different prestigious awards and was on the Ringback Tone #1 Download Charts for over a year.
2003–2006: Chinked-out
Having established himself as one of the most important, influential, and prolific artists in Chinese music, never repeating himself, Wang continued to invent and experiment with new sounds and voices.
His ninth album, marked a milestone in his career. Not only did the album heavily stress mainstream and , it also sold more than 1,300,000 copies in Asia and won him Best Producer of the Year again for the 15th Golden Melody Awards in 2004. The lead single of the album, "You're Not Here" was ranked #1 in several music charts and stayed there for well over 10 weeks. Before the release of ''Unbelievable'', Wang began his first world concert tour titled "Unbelievable". The concert tour received rave reviews from fans and critiques in all regions in Asia.
In his tenth album, released on the last day of 2004, '''' , Wang incorporated the often unheard music of Chinese aboriginal music into mainstream hip hop and coined this style "chinked-out". He experimented with the tribal sounds of China, Tibet, and Mongolia, traveled to remote villages, carrying 15 kg of equipment while fighting bouts of altitude and food sickness. Despite the derogatory nature of the term "chink," Wang had wanted to repossess the term and "make it cool." Within a month, the album sold over 300,000 copies.
Continuing the "chinked-out spirit" by infusing elements of Beijing opera and Kunqu into the songs, ''Heroes of Earth'' was released on December 30, 2005. ''Heroes of Earth'' was his eleventh album. He collaborated with , , and Lim Jeong Hee and again won himself Best Male Vocalist in the 17th Golden Melody Awards in 2006. ''Heroes of Earth'' impressively broke the record of selling more than 1,000,000 copies ten days after its release. The album stayed at first place in the G-Music Charts for 6 weeks.. Ultimately, the album stayed in the charts for a total of 23 weeks and became third for the most sold album in Taiwan of 2006.
2007-Present: Change Me
In the summer of 2007, Wang released his much anticipated 12th album, ''Change Me'' . The album was released on Friday, July 13, disregarding the superstition generally attached to Friday the 13th.. Through this album, Leehom promotes the issue of global warming and social awareness. The packaging of the CD uses recycled paper and contains no plastic. Wang believes that little changes in each person can affect the world. The CD also came with a pair of reusable metal chopsticks in a pouch. This is also to promote environmental awareness.
Wang's first promotional single album for the new album, "Falling Leaf Returns to Roots" gave its world premiere at on June 20, 2007. The music style is very different from Wang's previous singles. Wang had said that the inspiration behind the song was due to the influence of his portrayal of Kuang Yumin in the film ''''. The song accompanies melodic violin and piano solos. In addition, Leehom collaborated with Selina Ren, a member of the famous Taiwan girl group S.H.E in " You're a song in my heart" . For this song, Wang sings a few lines in Taiwanese, which was a bit of a challenge for him because of he is not fluent in Taiwanese. Wang learned some Taiwanese in order to help deal with this challenge.
In August 2008, Wang sought $320,000 in damages for plagiarism by Pritam, an Indian composer. The lead song for the movie '''', composed by Pritam, was allegedly copied from "Deep Within the Bamboo Grove" .
Musical style
Leehom's music ranges greatly from album to album. Although Leehom is classified as an artist, he demonstrates competence with many styles of music ranging from traditional mandopop, Broadway style, jazz, rock, R&B, slow jams, gospel, acoustic, Indi-pop, hip-hop, rap and R&B -- with much of it infused with Chinese flavor.
When he first debuted, he sang old school and acoustic R&B ballads. Starting from ''Revolution'' , Wang began to test out R&B pop music, but quickly jumped to a quirky style of dance pop for ''Impossible to Miss You'' . Starting from '''' , Wang began composing songs with heavy electric guitar melodies and less emphasis on dance pop. Nonetheless, Wang still concentrated in light R&B music. '''' became Wang's only fully produced album.
'''' began a new road of music for Wang. Aside from the usual R&B grove, Wang contributed and rap that was not clearly emphasized in his past albums. "Not Your Average Thug" was a newly composed R&B style with huge American influence. "Can You Feel My World" was a different style of R&B, and the song contained huge uses of the piano and violin as the accompaniment. Fast dance songs like "Ya Birthday" and "Girlfriend" incorporated rapid rap and heavy drum rhythms. "Girlfriend" included a heavily emphasised chinese flute and a music style that is influenced by Indi-pop.
'''' was the first chapter of Wang's new style, chinked-out. Chinked-out is a new kind of musical style developed by Wang that involves modern "west" music of , , rap, and , along with "east" music of heavy Chinese instrument influences, more notably the koudi, tuhu, and ijac. "Deep Within the Bamboo Grove" emphasized the music of different minority tribes in Yunnan and other remote areas of China.
''Heroes of Earth'' displayed a different side to chinked out. Instead of ethnic minority music, Wang focused on Peking Opera and Kunqu. Leehom used instruments such as the erhu, guqin, and guzheng to infuse his new album with another side of traditional Chinese sound. "Beside the Plum Blossoms" dealt with fast kunqu melodies. In the last 50 seconds of the song, Wang rapped over 250 words, increasing in speed towards the middle and then slowed down. This was to emphasize the accelerating and descending beats of traditional Chinese opera.
Nonetheless, Wang is still very notable for his modern love ballads like "Forever Love" and "Kiss Goodbye", both which are sung with piano and string instrument accompaniments. A new song, "Dramas of the East" , was released as the theme song for a TV program in mainland China, 非常有戲 , on April 6, 2007. The song included Beijing opera with rap and pop rock, previewing Wang's new turn in his music.
Heroes of Earth World Tour
Wang has just completed his Heroes of Earth World Tour , his third world tour to date. The tour includes:
Film career
Wang had displayed interest in acting when he starred in several musical plays when he was in high school and college. In , Wang made his film debut by acting as ''Alex Cheung'' in a film, ''China Strike Force'', starring alongside Aaron Kwok, Norika Fujiwara, and Ruby Lin. Hong Kong critics had remarked Wang for giving a well-toned performance as his first film, and then granted him as the first male lead in another Hong Kong-based film, ''The Avenging Fist'', acting alongside Stephen Fung, Gigi Leung, and Kristy Yeung. The movie was released in Hong Kong cinemas in December of . Wang acted in two Japanese films, '''' and ''Starlit High Noon'' , and both of these films had great success in Japan.
The major breakthrough in his film career was in '''', directed and produced by Ang Lee. It was his first Mandarin-language film. The film is based on a written by Eileen Chang and revolves around a plot to assassinate a high-ranking official in the Wang Jingwei Government using a beautiful young woman as bait. Wang plays ''Kuang Yumin'', a patriotic college student who persuades ''Wong Chia Chi'' to seduce ''Mr. Yee'' . The film was released in the cinemas on 28 September2007. ''Lust, Caution'' was produced on a budget of approximately $15 million and grossed $64,574,876 worldwide.
Filmography
Endorsements
In 2006, Wang became Yamaha spokesperson for Yes! Yamaha Motors. Wang is Sony Ericsson's main spokesperson; the songs "Mistake in the Flower Fields" and "Kiss Goodbye" were promotional singles for Sony Ericsson's various new mobile models. Wang has endorsed for China's Wahaha Water for 8 years. Wang began endorsing Coca-Cola alongside S.H.E, Wilber Pan, Liu Xiang, and Shawn Yue in 2007, McDonald's since 2003, and Bausch & Lomb since 2007.
Participation in 2008 Beijing Olympic Games
Wang was chosen as one of the few Chinese torchbearers to run in Greece. Wang was torchbearer number 17 on March 24th, the first day of the torch relay. He also attended the torch lighting ceremony before his run. Wang took the torch from Liu Hong Liang, son of the first Chinese to attend the Olympic games, Liu Chang Chun. Wang represented the newest generation of singers from Taiwan and China. He was chosen mainly because he is devoted to helping save the environment, as shown in his latest album Change Me.
Another reason he was chosen is due to Wang's enthusiasm in the 2008 Olympic Games Theme Songs Competition. His single One World One Dream was chosen as a Olympic Games participation song. The single was written, sung, produced, and scored entirely by himself. Wang also sang in the 100 days countdown theme song Beijing Welcomes You. He also sang along side Stephanie Sun, Wang Feng，and Jane Zhang in the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Torch Relay Theme Song, Light The Passion Share The Dream. He is also one of the candidates on vote for performer of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Theme Song. In the closing ceremony, he sang "Beijing Beijing, I Love Beijing" alongside Hong Kong singer Kelly Chen and Korean singer .
Related Publications
* December 18, 2001: ''The One and Only - The Official Piano and Vocal Score''
* March 20, 2003: ''Accidental Biography''
* October 15, 2003: ''Portrait of a Love Song''
* November 15, 2005: ''Shangri-La - The Official Piano and Vocal Score''
* June 9, 2006: "Heroes Of TOKYO"
