Lou Natale

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, screen writer 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 ("Cowboys Don’t Cry," directed by Anne Wheeler), six Gemini nominations, and has scored many other award winning shows, including Atlantis Films’ Oscar winner Boys & Girls (1984) 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 (1988), 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 (Christian DuGuay, director), 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 (featuring country/pop singer Kenny Rogers), Showtime’s reworking of the Kurt Vonnegut classic, Harrison Bergeron (starring Sean Astin and Christopher Plummer), ESPN’s Hustle: The Pete Rose Story directed by veteran Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon), 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

1982-83 Sons and Daughters
1983-84 Bell Canada Playhouse
1984 For The Record - The Front Line
1985 Ray Bradbury Theatre II - The Town Where No One Got Off
1985 Ray Bradbury Theatre II - The Crowd
1985 Showstopper
1985 The Screaming Woman
1986 Really Weird Tales - All's Well That Ends Strange
1986 Vulcan - You Oughta Be In Pictures
1987 Ray Bradbury Theatre II - The Emissary
1988 Alfred Hitchcock Presents
1988-89 The New Twilight Zone
1990 Clarence
1990 Journey Into Darkness
1990 Ray Bradbury Theatre
1990-93 Maniac Mansion
1991 The Girl From Mars
1992 Partners 'N Love
1995 Harrison Bergeron
1996-99 Traders
1996-00 PSI Factor
1999 Tom Alone - The Last Train Home
2001 Blue Murder
2001-02 Mutant X
2003 Playmakers
2005 Tilt

Film Scores

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