Tan Dun

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Tan Dun (pinyin: Tan2 Dun4, 譚盾; born August 18, 1957) is a Chinese composer, most widely known as the Grammy and Oscar award winning composer for the soundtracks of the movies Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero.

Tan Dun was born in the village of Simao, Changsha in the Hunan province of China. As a child, he was fascinated by the role in his village of the shaman, who conducted rituals and ceremonies, often set to music made with organic objects such as rocks and water. However, as a child in the midst of China's cultural revolution, this kind of "backward thinking" was frowned upon, and he was sent to work as a rice planter on a government commune.

That, however, had little effect on his affinity for music. He created his own musical group, utilizing peasants in the village and playing whatever they could, sometimes just banging on pots and pans. It was from these peasants that he began to learn to play traditional Chinese string instruments.

His escape from the commune came in the form of a government sponsored touring company of the Peking opera. When a ferry full of performers capsized near the commune, killing several of them, Tan was employed by the troupe and left the commune.

From there he went to the China Conservatory of Music, and studied with musicians such as Toru Takemitsu, who strongly influenced his musicianship, and his sense of musical style.

In 1985, he moved to New York City as a doctoral student at Columbia University, studying composition with Chou Wen-chung, who had studied with and assisted the composer Edgard Varèse. It was there that Tan discovered the music of experimental musicians such as Philip Glass, John Cage, Meredith Monk and Steve Reich. He gradually realised he could incorporate all these disparate influences - his upbringing in Hunan, his classical training at the conservatory and the contemporary experimental composers in New York - into his compositions.

Tan Dun is widely recognized for using non traditional and organic instruments in his compositions. His piece Water Passion After St. Matthew employs amplified bowls of water in lieu of traditional percussion, and his Paper Concerto relies solely on the manipulation of paper to create music. He is also recognized for adding multimedia aspects to his performances, such as orchestras that interact with video, or audience participation.

For the official ceremony for the transfer of the sovereignty of Hong Kong on July 1, 1997, he was commissioned to write Symphony 1997: Heaven Earth Mankind, for cello soloist (who was Yo-Yo Ma at the first performances), the recently unearthed ancient bianzhong bells, children's choir and orchestra.

In 1994 he was awarded The Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts by the Council for the Arts at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

In 1996 he was selected by the Glenn Gould Foundation as the recipient of the 1996 City of Toronto - Glenn Gould International Protégé Prize in Music.

In 2000 Dun, along with Sofia Gubaidulina, Osvaldo Golijov, and Wolfgang Rihm, was commissioned by the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart project to write a piece for the Passion 2000 project in commemoration of Johann Sebastian Bach. His contribution was the Water Passion After St. Matthew.

His 2002 opera, Tea: A Mirror of the Soul, with a libretto by Tan and Xu Ying and commissioned by Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Japan, was given its world premiere performance there on 22 October 2002. The opera will receive its US premiere during the 2007 season of the Santa Fe Opera.

On December 21, 2006, his new opera The First Emperor will receive its premiere performance at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, which commisioned the work. The libretto is based on the life of the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, who built the Great Wall and united the country. The production will be by Zhang Yimou, who directed the films Hero and House of Flying Daggers among others. Placido Domingo will play the title role, with Elizabeth Futral as the emperor's daughter. The opera will be conducted by the composer himself.