One award-winning film after another for composer Nathan Matthew David

The composer behind the new movie “Joy Ride” and the new Stephen Curry documentary “Underrated,” is the award-winning Nathan Matthew David.

The Filipino American composer worked to create seamless scores for both projects and helped enhance the storylines to their fullest. 

For the heartful comedy “Joy Ride,” Nathan worked closely with Adele Lim to craft a musical score that was specific to each character and their arc in the bigger story. He used the Chinese string instruments Guzheng and Ruan alongside guitars and synths to create a band-like sound but with a blend of Asian and Western instruments to help follow the Asian-American leads. The film stars Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu and Sabrina Wu. 

“Underrated” follows the path of NBA legend Stephen Curry as he overcame big odds to become one of the greatest ever. Originally premiering at Sundance, the musical score composed by Nathan is ascendant and transformative as it follows Steph as he finds himself. The documentary is now streaming on Apple TV+. 

The USC alumnus and Emmy-nominated composer for film and television has also worked on the Disney+ basketball film “Chang Can Dunk” this past March and will soon showcase his work on an upcoming Netflix series “The Brothers Sun.” 

From comic book adaptations to award-winning documentaries, Nathan has scored some of the most exciting projects of the last few years.

His dark synth and guitar driven work was recently heard on the Russo Brothers’ adaptation of the acclaimed comic “Deadly Class”. And his emotional and poignant music featured in the powerful and Peabody Award-winning docu-series “Surviving R. Kelly.” For the latter, he also took home an ASCAP 2020 Screen Award.

Born to Filipino immigrants, his family taught him music at a young age. His curiosity would lead him to play in bands and to study film scoring at USC’s prestigious Scoring For Motion Pictures and Television program.

He would go on to be mentored by and collaborate with Oscar-winning composer Ludwig Goransson (“Black Panther”) and Theodore Shapiro (“Bombshell”). With the former, he co-composed the A24 film starring Chance The Rapper, “Slice.”

He is currently writing an album featuring indigenous Filipino instruments, chamber ensemble and electronics.

Other works included composing the music for the James Cameron produced “Gamechangers”  and the TBS hit comedy, “Angie Tribeca” from Steve and Nancy Carrell.