Staff

Nathan Phung
Director of Instrumental Music/Marching Band Arranger

Mr. Phung has been an active music educator, performer, composer/arranger, and songwriter since his graduation from high school in 2009. Prior to his arrival at Cajon High School in 2015, Mr. Phung completed his student teaching at Huntington Beach High School, where he assisted the prestigious Huntington Beach Academy for the Performing Arts’ Orchestral and Media, Multimedia, and Entertainment Technology Departments under the guidance of distinguished band and orchestra teacher Gregg Gilboe and Apple Distinguished Educator Jamie Knight, respectively. Mr. Phung was actively teaching while completing his studies at CSU Long Beach, coaching marching percussion, brass, and marching/movement at various high schools and maintaining a studio of private piano students.

Mr. Phung graduated from the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at CSU Long Beach with a Bachelor’s Degree in Instrumental Music Education and Piano Performance in 2013, completed his credential coursework at the same institution in 2015, and is currently a candidate for the Master’s in Arts in Music Education.  His research interests are in popular music education, culturally relevant pedagogy in music education, and social justice issues in music education. In 2015, Mr. Phung was named Outstanding Music Education Student at the Bob Cole Conservatory. Mr. Phung is an alumnus of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia men’s music fraternity, and holds professional memberships in the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), Southern California School Band and Orchestra Association (SCSBOA), California Music Educators Association (CMEA), California Association of Professional Music Teachers (CAPMT), Music Teachers National Association (MTNA), and the Association for Popular Music Education (APME). He is also a registered songwriter and composer with Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI).

As a performer, Mr. Phung has a career as a multi-instrumentalist that covers a wide swath of music including classical, jazz, ska/reggae, and punk rock. He has performed with an eclectic collection of musical ensembles including the Bob Cole Conservatory University Symphony Orchestra, East Los Angeles College Latin Jazz Ensemble, LiveSka All-Stars, Isolated Victims, The Swingin’ Eight Balls, The Maxies, Odd Robot, Half Past Two, Bad Manners, Yorktown Lads, and many more projects and ensembles. In addition to ensemble work, Mr. Phung has worked as a freelance collaborative pianist and accompanist, accepting chamber and solo accompaniment assignments as well as pit orchestra assignments for musical theater. He is an active singer-songwriter and composer/arranger; arrangement projects include various pieces of pep music for the Cajon High School pep/marching band, a 20-hands piano ensemble arrangement of Liszt’s Grand Galop Chromatique, and and various marching percussion cadences and battery arrangements. In current years, he arranges the wind books for Cajon High School’s Gold Star Regiment Marching Band. He currently plays the keyboards and sings background vocals for Odd Robot (Wiretap Records), The Maxies (Rock Ridge Music), and Poindexter (Ska Punk International). He also writes, performs, and produces for his songwriting project Nate Funk with two Cajon alumni, Logan Barton and Justyn Snowden.

Mr. Phung brings a philosophy of shaping lifelong appreciators, performers, and creators of music through practical teaching that connects music to life and society.