Lou Natale


Louis "Lou" Natale is a Canadian composer based in Toronto, Ontario who founded Natale Music in 1981. Since then, Lou has garnered a Genie Award for Best Song, six Gemini nominations, and has scored many other award-winning shows, including Atlantis Films' Oscar winner Boys and Girls and the classic A Child's Christmas in Wales.

Early life

Natale's musical life began with listening to his eldest sister, Mary, playing classics and popular standards at the living room piano, followed by his own piano studies at age 8, adding accordion at 12 and guitar and percussion in his teens, when he began writing songs and singing and playing in local bands.

Schooling

Lou is a graduate of McQuaid Jesuit High School in Rochester, N.Y. and St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. After university, he studied under Darwin Aitken, one of Canada's premier symphonic piano teachers, and jazz theory and composition with saxophonist/band leader Ted Moses.

Early career

Lou entered the world of film scoring in the early 1980s when asked by a friend, screenwriter Steve Lucas, if he had ever thought of composing for film. Lucas knew Lou as a songwriter and had just had a script accepted by the then fledgling Atlantis Films. After meeting with Atlantis co-founders Seaton McLean, Janice Platt and Michael MacMillan, Lou began work on the short film The Bamboo Brush, directed by a young Sturla Gunnarsson. The next film Atlantis produced was an adaptation of the Alice Munro story, Boys and Girls. Natale was hired to score under the direction of Don McBrearty, and the film went on to win the Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film. Atlantis was on its way, as was a 20+ year successful composer – producer relationship between Natale, McLean, Platt and MacMillan.

Music career

Lou founded Natale Music Inc. in 1981. Since then, he has garnered a Genie Award for Best Song, six Gemini nominations, and has scored many other award-winning shows, including Atlantis Films’ Oscar winner Boys & Girls and the classic A Child’s Christmas in Wales, narrated by Denholm Elliot. One of North America's most versatile film composers, Lou's other credits include the Canadian series Traders, Blue Murder, PSI Factor, Ray Bradbury Theatre, and The Twilight Zone, the U.S. series Mutant X, Playmakers and Tilt, as well as many television movies and feature films, including Eugene Levy’s Sodbusters, the CBS thriller Adrift, ABC's To Brave Alaska, with Alyssa Milano, Madonna: Innocence Lost for Fox, NBC's Journey Into Darkness: The Bruce Curtis Story and Christmas in America, Showtime's reworking of the Kurt Vonnegut classic, Harrison Bergeron, ESPN's Hustle: The Pete Rose Story directed by veteran Peter Bogdanovich, and most recently, CTV's The Horses of McBride, directed by Anne Wheeler and starring Aidan Quinn.
Lou currently lives in Toronto with his partner, Sharon Singer. He has three children.

Television scores

1982–83Sons and Daughters
1983–84Bell Canada Playhouse
1984For The Record – The Front Line
1985Ray Bradbury Theatre II – The Town Where No One Got OffCowboys Don't Cry' 1987
1985Ray Bradbury Theatre II – The Crowd
1985Showstopper
1985The Screaming Woman
1986Really Weird Tales – All's Well That Ends Strange
1986Vulcan – You Oughta Be In Pictures
1987Ray Bradbury Theatre II – The Emissary
1988Alfred Hitchcock Presents
1988–89The New Twilight Zone
1990Clarence
1990Journey Into Darkness
1990Ray Bradbury Theatre
1990–93Maniac Mansion
1991The Girl From Mars
1992Partners 'N Love
1995Harrison Bergeron
1996–99Traders
1996–00'
1999Tom Alone – The Last Train Home
2001Blue Murder
2001–02Mutant X
2003Playmakers
2005Tilt''

Film scores

1987A Child's Christmas in Wales
1988Cowboys Don't Cry
1993Adrift
1993Model By Day
1993: The Jim & Jennifer Stolpa Story
1993Sodbusters
1994Man in the Attic
1994Tekwar
1995Madonna: The Early Years
1996To Brave Alaska
1997Lethal Tender
2004Hustle: The Pete Rose Story