Welcome to the home of Ziran on the Web.

The Story of Ziran

The story of Ziran begins at Caltech in the spring of 2002. As students in Professor Ming's 2nd year Chinese language class, we needed to put on a musical show for our final project. The school had purchased a karaoke machine for our class earlier in the year, and we needed to prove that it was a worthwhile investment. However, it seemed quite lame to just go up in front of an audience and sing karaoke for our final project demonstrating our abilities, so we decided to write and perform our own musical.

Our original lineup had Mark on keyboards, Yifan on bass, Yuan Sun, the protagonist of the musical, on vocals, and Jonathan Chang on guitar. Due to time constraints, however, Jonathan had to leave the band. Fortunately, we picked up Brian Eng from the 3rd year class to replace Jonathan on guitar.

During our first practice session with the new lineup, Brian mentioned that he knew a graduate student who could possibly help us out on drums. Coincidentally, not five minutes passed before we heard a knock on the door. Lo and behold, it was Graeme -- the drummer Brian had in mind. Thus Ziran was born.

After the first show, we broke up for the summer and Yuan returned home to Texas. In August, we reformed without him and began advertising for a new singer at Pasadena City College. After several grueling weeks of auditions, we settled on our final lineup with Kelly and Nathan on vocals. The rest, as they say, is history.

 

The Members of Ziran

Brian Eng

Instruments: Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar

Brian has been playing guitar for over 8 years now. While his roots are in rock, he also has a strong interest in jazz. Additionally, Brian (and Graeme) are featured in the Caltech Monday Jazz Band. As is popular these days, Brian also finds time to mess around with electronic music production on his computer and can be found spinning repetitive house music in his apartment or anywhere that will take a free DJ.

   

Mark "Lu Junmin" Rudner

Instruments: Keyboards, Synthesizer, Alto Sax

Musical Influences: Classical, Blues, Rock

Life Story: Mark grew up on the mean streets of Tustin, California, where he had to learn piano to defend himself from crazed little league coaches and soccer moms. When not being subjected to self-esteem classes as part of the Tustin Unified School District's prized Project Self- Esteem Program, he played piano and pretended to do well in school.

Finally, he escaped to Troy High School in Fullerton, California and was fortunately able to reverse the intellectual damage done to him by Project Self-Esteem. Currently, he's a student at Caltech studying chemistry and physics.

   

Graeme Smith

Instruments: Drums and Percussion

Graeme grew up on a small island off the east coast of Canada, where he probably could have benefitted from those self-esteem lessons. After quitting high-school without a diploma, he moved to the bustling metropolis of Toronto in search of a new life. Three years later fate intervened, whisking him across the continent to fulfill his destiny. That destiny was ...

   

Nathan Wu

Talents: Vocals

Nathan is one of the singers for Ziran. Since coming to America, he is finally doing many meaningful and exciting things. For him, these things bring him lots of joy and happiness.

   

Yifan Yu

Instruments: Bass, Backup Vocals

Yifan plays the electric bass with Ziran, as well as with another metal band. He also plays the trumpet with the Caltech Concert Band. Besides playing music, video games, and sitting on his butt doing nothing, he spends whatever little time is left trying not to flunk out of school. Fortunately, he just graduated!

   

Kelly Zheng

Talents: Lead Vocals

At age 16, Kelly left China to study English in Cambridge, England. After six months, she came to the United States for her senior year of high school. Since she was a little girl, Kelly has always enjoyed singing, especially karaoke. Her favorite singer is Faye Wong. After completing her BA in Broadcasting Journalism from CSUN, she is getting her MA in Mass Communication now.