For the first episode of our Sundance Series, we talk to Composer Roger Suen about his work on last year’s Sundance hit, “Gook,” and of course, the film he has premiering this year, “Ms Purple.” Have a listen and enjoy! (See below for Roger’s bio).
Composer extraordinaire Roger Suen has lent his expertise to numerous feature films, television series and documentaries. Best known for his critically acclaimed score for the 2017 Sundance award-winning film, Gook, Film Music Magazine said Roger’s score was “powerfully unexpected, musical color” and included it in their Top 10 Scores of 2017. Roger recently reunited with Gook director Justin Chon to score the modern Asian-American drama film Ms. Purple, premiering Jan. 26 at the Sundance Film Festival, and produced by MACRO, the production company behind critically-acclaimed films such as Mudbound, Roman J. Israel, Esq., and Fences.
Roger’s diverse music portfolio includes scoring additional music for Guillermo Del Toro’s four-time Oscar winning film The Shape of Water, 21st Century Fox’s science fiction thriller The Darkest Minds, starring Amandla Stenberg and Mandy Moore, Netflix’s five-time Emmy-nominated series Daredevil, starring Charlie Cox and Deborah Ann Woll, and Marvel’s Emmy-nominated series The Defenders, starring Cox, Krysten Ritter and Mike Colter.
Through his mastery of orchestral composition and modern electronica, he has created heart-pounding additional music for blockbuster films such as Oscar-nominated X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials and Maze Runner: The Death Cure.
Roger’s musical versatility is even more apparent in Sony Pictures’ animated film The Star and Warner Bros’ comedy The Nice Guys, starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling, as he seamlessly navigates groovy funk to Wagnerian orchestral drama without missing a beat.
A Southern California native, Roger studied music composition as an undergraduate then graduate student at UCLA and CSUN. He currently resides in Los Angeles.