Nathaniel Méchaly

Méchaly was born in 1972. He studied music at the Conservatoire National de Région de Musique de Marseille.^[1] His older sister, opera singer Gaëlle Méchaly, studied music at the same conservatoire.^[2]

Méchaly began his career as a composer for television shows and commercials for French media conglomerates. He served as an assistant to French-Lebanese composer Gabriel Yared.^[3]

He wrote his first score for French-Israeli writer and director Raphaël Nadjari's 2004 film Avanim. He went on to score two more Israeli feature films: Ushpizin (2004), and Tehilim (2007) which was also directed by Nadjari. Eventually, the French production company EuropaCorp's music department director became aware of Méchaly's earlier works and commissioned him to compose French actor Richard Berry's 2005 directorial feature film The Black Box. French screenwriter and director Luc Besson, co-founder of EuropaCorp was pleased with Méchaly's work in The Black Box and decided to hire him for future projects.^[3]

Méchaly won Best Original Film Score at the 33rd Hong Kong Film Awards and Best Composer at the 8th Asian Film Awards for The Grandmaster (2013) with Japanese composer Shigeru Umebayashi.^[4][5]