LEMON檸檬
I — PORTRAIT

Stories carried throughstrings & silence.

Lemon — Vietnamese composer, holding a moon lute in jade silk robes
作 曲 家

Lemon — a Vietnamese composer based in the United States, scoring at the meeting point of East Asian heritage and modern cinema.

THE WORKSTHE COMPOSER
ENTER
II作品集
THE WORKS
FEATURED WORKS作品集

A catalogue of stories told through sound.

Selected projects across film, games, original songs, and cultural commissions — each scored from the meeting point of orchestra and heritage.

01電影

Film Score

Algiers — Opening Credits

A 1'15" opening-credits cue for Algiers (1938), where the line between Paris and the Casbah dissolves into a single chord — built around a solo voice singing in Arabic that opens onto the old quarter's Andalusian–North African musical heritage.

NOTES
Scored for piano and Violoncello. A Neapolitan chord and borrowed modal colors evoke a Phrygian sound close to maqam Hijaz; the cello holds a sustained pedal tone like an oud drone while a string of secondary dominants in the piano traces a restless harmonic wandering. Theory & Composition assignment, Berklee Online.
MOOD
Restless · Liminal · Yearning
VOICES
PianoVioloncello
02遊戲

Game Score

God of War — Game Cue

My first game score — a cue scored to a God of War scene, where Norse myth, vengeance, and motion collide; harmonic shadows and shifting meters track a relentless momentum through a world ruled by gods and grudges.

NOTES
Built on C minor's composite minor scale (raised leading tone plus modal-interchange color), with borrowed bVI and bII (Neapolitan) chords lending a Phrygian darkness, and a single V7/V secondary dominant sharpening the cue's pivotal tension point. Shifting between 4/4, 7/8, and 6/8 mirrors the scene's unstable, combat-driven motion. Scored for viola, pad synthesizer, electric piano, and drum kit. First-ever game-scoring assignment, Berklee Online.
MOOD
Tense · Mythic · Relentless
VOICES
ViolaSynthElectric PianoDrums
Heaven's Crooked Path
03遊戲

Game Music

Heaven's Crooked Path

Adaptive score for an action-adventure title set in a mythic Tang-dynasty world of spirits and emperors.

NOTES
Vertical-layered orchestration that responds to player breath, combat tempo, and ritual states.
MOOD
Mythic · Architectural · Ferocious
VOICES
BrassErhuGuzhengPercussion
Moon Across Still Water
04歌曲

Original Song

Moon Across Still Water

A bilingual ballad written for an international vocalist — a meditation on distance, longing, and return.

NOTES
Built around a single Koto motif, expanded with breath choir and felted piano.
MOOD
Intimate · Suspended · Tender
VOICES
KotoPianoVoice
Lotus, Lacquer, Light
05傳統

Cultural Work

Lotus, Lacquer, Light

A traditional suite commissioned for a touring exhibition of Vietnamese heritage, performed live at three museums.

NOTES
Reimagines folk repertoire from the Red River delta through cinematic orchestration and ancient ensembles.
MOOD
Ceremonial · Luminous · Ancestral
VOICES
Đàn TranhĐàn NhịShakuhachiXiao
Ink Across the Mountain
06電影

Film Score

Ink Across the Mountain

A meditative score for an independent drama about a calligrapher returning to her childhood village.

NOTES
Chamber strings and prepared piano, recorded in a single 19th-century chapel.
MOOD
Still · Reverent · Translucent
VOICES
StringsPianoShakuhachi
III作曲家
THE COMPOSER
Lemon — composer, holding moon lute in jade silk robes
作 曲 家

LEMON · COMPOSER · 2025

ABOUT THE COMPOSER作曲家

A Vietnamese composer writing at the meeting point of cultures.

Lemon is a Vietnamese composer, orchestrator, and storyteller based in the United States, scoring for film, television, video games, and international music projects. His work moves between the Western orchestral tradition and the ancient musical languages of Vietnam, China, Japan, and Korea.

Trained as both an orchestrator and a multi-instrumentalist on traditional East Asian instruments, he writes scores that hold space for silence as much as sound — for the breath between two notes, the resonance of a single string, the architecture of a temple bell.

Beyond film, he serves as a creative thinker and founder of cross-cultural collaborations, partnering with international artists and institutions to bring East Asian heritage into contemporary cinema, games, and concert music around the world.

40+
SCORING CREDITS
12
COUNTRIES COLLABORATED
20+
INSTRUMENTS PERFORMED
IV哲學
PHILOSOPHY
ARTISTIC PHILOSOPHY哲學

Sound is the oldest bridge between memory and the present.

01 · HERITAGE

Listen first to the silence between the notes.

Traditional East Asian music teaches that resonance lives in restraint. Every score begins by asking what should not be said — what the audience must feel, rather than be told.

靜

02 · CINEMA

Treat the orchestra as architecture.

An orchestra is not just an ensemble; it is a temple — pillars of brass, beams of strings, ceilings of choir. The story walks through that architecture, and the music shapes the rooms.

築

03 · BRIDGE

Carry tradition into worlds that haven't met it yet.

Whether a film, a video game, or an international pop record, my work brings ancient instruments and modal languages into spaces where they can find new listeners — without losing their lineage.

橋

“I write so that the past has a voice my generation can still hear — and so that the music of my ancestors can travel into the worlds that my children will inherit.”

— LEMON

V樂器
INSTRUMENTS
INSTRUMENTS & ORCHESTRATION樂器

Two musical traditions, written for one ensemble.

Fluency in both Western orchestral writing and the traditional instruments of East Asia — composed, performed, and recorded across two musical lineages.

Western Orchestra

管弦樂
  • Strings弦
  • Woodwinds木管
  • Brass銅管
  • Percussion打
  • Piano琴

Traditional East Asian

傳統樂器
  • Đàn TranhVIETNAM箏
  • Đàn BầuVIETNAM獨絃琴
  • Đàn NhịVIETNAM二胡
  • Tỳ BàVIETNAM琵琶
  • GuzhengCHINA古箏
  • ErhuCHINA二胡
  • XiaoCHINA簫
  • DiziCHINA笛
  • ShakuhachiJAPAN尺八
  • KotoJAPAN琴
  • TaikoJAPAN太鼓
VI連絡
CONTACT
CONTACT連絡

For films, games, and cross-cultural commissions.

Currently accepting select projects for the coming season. Reach out with a short note about the story you are telling — I will write back.

hello@lemoncomposer.com
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© 2025 LEMON · ALL WORKS RESERVED音 · 静 · 永SCORED IN THE UNITED STATES