Tan Dun (Chinese:谭盾;pinyin:Tán Dùn,Mandarin pronunciation:[tʰǎntu̯ə̂n]; born 18 August 1957) is a Chinese-born American composer and conductor.[1][2] A leading figure ofcontemporary classical music,[2] he draws from a variety ofWestern and Chinese influences, a pairing which has shaped much of his life and music.[3] Having collaborated with leading orchestras around the world, Tan is the recipient ofnumerous awards, including aGrawemeyer Award for his operaMarco Polo (1996) and both anAcademy Award andGrammy Award for hisfilm score inAng Lee'sCrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000).Hisoeuvre as a whole includes operas, orchestral, vocal, chamber, solo andfilm scores, as well as genres that Tan terms "organic music" and "music ritual."
Born inHunan, China, Tan grew up during theCultural Revolution and received musical education from theCentral Conservatory of Music. His early influences included bothChinese music and20th-century classical music. Since receiving aDMA fromColumbia University in 1993, Tan has been based inNew York City.[2] His compositions often incorporate audiovisual elements; use instruments constructed from organic materials, such as paper, water, and stone; and are often inspired by traditional Chinese theatrical and ritual performance. In 2013, he was named aUNESCO Goodwill Ambassador.[4]
Tan Dun was born in 1957 in a village inChangsha inHunan, China. As a child, he was fascinated by the rituals and ceremonies of the village shaman, which were typically set to music made with natural objects such as rocks and water.[5] Due to the bans enacted during theCultural Revolution, he was discouraged from pursuing music and was sent to work as a rice planter on the Huangjin commune. He joined an ensemble of other commune residents and learned to play traditionalChinese string instruments. Following a ferry accident that resulted in the death of several members of aPeking opera troupe, Tan Dun was called upon as a violist and arranger. This initial success earned him a seat in the orchestra, and from there he went to study at theCentral Conservatory of Music inBeijing in 1977.[6] While at the Conservatory, Tan Dun came into contact with composers such asToru Takemitsu,George Crumb,Alexander Goehr,Hans Werner Henze,Isang Yun, andChou Wen-Chung, all of whom influenced his sense of musical style.
In 1986, he moved toNew York City as a doctoral student atColumbia University, once again studying with Chou Wen-Chung, who had studied underEdgard Varèse. At Columbia, Tan Dun discovered the music of composers such asPhilip Glass,John Cage,Meredith Monk, andSteve Reich, and began incorporating these influences into his compositions. He completed his dissertation,Death and Fire: Dialogue with Paul Klee, in 1993.[7] Inspired by a visit to theMuseum of Modern Art,Death and Fire is a short symphony that engages with the paintings ofPaul Klee.[8] On June 15, 2016, he created the Grand Opening Theme Song ofShanghai Disney Resort. He began his tenure as Dean of theBard College Conservatory of Music on July 1, 2019.[9]
During his time at Columbia University, Tan Dun composed his first opera, a setting of nature poems byQu Yuan calledNine Songs (1989). The poems are sung in bothClassical Chinese and contemporary English alongside a small ensemble of Western and Chinese instruments. Among these are a specially built set of 50 ceramic percussion, string, and wind instruments, designed in collaboration with potter Ragnar Naess.[10] To emphasize the shamanistic nature of Qu Yuan's poetry, the actors dance and move in a ritualized manner.[11]
Tan Dun's second work in the genre,Marco Polo (1996), set to a libretto byPaul Griffiths, is anopera within an opera. It begins with the spiritual journey of two characters, Marco and Polo, and their encounters with various historic figures of literature and music, includingDante Alighieri,William Shakespeare,Scheherazade,Sigmund Freud,John Cage,Gustav Mahler,Li Po, andKublai Khan. These sections are presented in an abstract,Peking opera style. Interwoven with these sections are the travels of the real-lifeMarco Polo, presented in a Western operatic style.[12] Though the score calls for traditional Western orchestral instrumentation, additional instruments are used to indicate the location of the characters, includingrecorder,rebec,sitar,tabla,singing bowls,Tibetan horn,sheng, andpipa.[13] The opera won theGrawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 1998.[14]
That same year, Tan Dun premiered his next opera,The Peony Pavilion, an adaptation ofTang Xianzu's 1598Kunquplay of the same name. Directed byPeter Sellars in its original production, Tan Dun's work is performed entirely in English, though one of the characters must be trained in Peking or Kunqu style. The small ensemble of six musicians performs electronics and Chinese instruments onstage with the actors. Stylistically, the music is a blend ofWestern avant-garde andChinese opera.[15]
At this point in his career, Tan Dun had created many works for "organic instruments," i.e. instruments constructed from materials such as paper, water, ceramic, and stone. For his fourth opera,Tea: A Mirror of Soul (2002), co-authored by librettistXu Ying, organic instruments factor prominently into the structure of the opera itself. The title of each act corresponds to the materials of the instruments being used, as well as the opera's plot. The first act, entitled "Water, Fire", opens with atea ceremony onstage while percussionists manipulate glass bowls of water. The second act, "Paper", features music on rice paper drums and depicts the characters' search forThe Classic of Tea, the first book to codify tea production and preparation in China. The third and final act, "Ceramic, Stones", depicts the death of the protagonist's love. Percussionists play on pitched flowerpots, referred to as "Ceramic chimes" in the score.[16][17]
Tan Dun's most recent opera,The First Emperor (2006), was commissioned by theMetropolitan Opera with the title role created forPlácido Domingo. Co-authored by Tan Dun and Chinese novelistHa Jin, the opera focuses on theunification of China underQin Shi Huang, first emperor of theQin dynasty, and his relationship with the musicianGao Jianli. Like Tan Dun's previous operas,The First Emperor calls for Chinese instruments in addition to a full orchestra, includingguzheng andbianzhong. The original Met production was directed byZhang Yimou, with whom Tan Dun had collaborated on the filmHero.[18]
Tan Dun earned more widespread attention after composing the score forAng Lee'sCrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), for which he won anAcademy Award, aGrammy Award, and aBAFTA Award.[19][20][21] Other film credits include the aforementionedHero (Zhang Yimou, 2002),Gregory Hoblit'sFallen (1998), andFeng Xiaogang'sThe Banquet (2006).
Following the composition of the film score forCrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Tan Dun rearranged the music to create theCrouching Tiger Concerto for cello, video, and chamber orchestra. Containing edited footage from the film, this work reverses the role of music in film by treating video as secondary.[22] This same technique was later applied to his film scores forHero andThe Banquet, resulting in the larger work known as theMartial Arts Cycle.[23]
In 2002, Tan Dun continued experimenting with application of video in musicThe Map, also for cello, video, and orchestra.The Map features documentary footage depicting the lives of China'sTujia,Miao, andDongethnic minorities.[24] The musicians onstage, including the cello soloist, interact with the musicians onscreen—a duet of live and recorded performance.[25] The work was premiered and commissioned by theBoston Symphony Orchestra withYo-Yo Ma.[26]
Tan Dun's most recent multimedia work,Nu Shu: The Secret Songs of Women (2013), is a 13-movement work for video, solo harp, and orchestra. Following years ofethnomusicological research in Hunan, the work captures the sounds ofNüshu script, a phonetic writing system devised by women speakers of theXiangnan Tuhua dialect who had been disallowed from receiving formal education. Considered adying language, Tan Dun's research resulted in a series of short films of women singing songs written in Nüshu, which are presented alongside the orchestral performance. As withThe Map, the songs in the video are used in counterpoint to the live music.[27]
In the 1990s, Tan Dun began working on a series of orchestral pieces that would analyze the relationship between performer and audience by synthesizing Western classical music and Chinese ritual. According to the composer,
If we look at the idea of 'art music' with its firm separation of performer and audience, we see that its history is comparatively short. Yet the history of music as an integral part of spiritual life, as ritual, as partnership in enjoyment and spirit, is as old as humanity itself.[28]
In the first piece of the series,Orchestral Theatre I: O (1990), members of the orchestra make various vocalizations—chantingnonsense syllables, for instance—while playing their instruments using atypical techniques. For examples, the harp is played as a gushing, and the violins are played as percussion instruments.[29]
Orchestral Theatre II: Re (1992) expands the concept of ritual by involving the audience. The orchestra is split, with the strings, brass, and percussion onstage, while the woodwinds surround the audience. The score also calls for two conductors, with one facing the stage, and the other facing the audience. The latter conductor cues the audience to hum along with the orchestra in certain sections of the music. The work's namesake derives from humming thesolfège pitch "re".[28]
The third piece in the series,Red Forecast (Orchestral Theatre III) (1996), involves more staging elements than its predecessors, adding television monitors, lighting, and even stage directions for the musicians. In this multimedia work, the orchestra is led by both a human conductor and a virtual conductor who appears on the monitors. While the human conductor leads, the monitors depict a variety of images from the 1960s and theCold War: a collage ofMao Zedong, theCultural Revolution,Martin Luther King Jr.,John F. Kennedy,The Beatles,Nikita Khrushchev, andhydrogen bomb testing. In addition to the video, an audio recording of a weather forecast is played.[30][31]
The final piece in the series,The Gate (Orchestral Theatre IV) (1999), focuses on three women of literary fame:Yu fromThe Hegemon-King Bids His Concubine Farewell,Juliet fromRomeo and Juliet, and Koharu fromThe Love Suicides at Amijima. Based on the theme of sacrifice for love,The Gate is structured as atheme and variations. The style of each section corresponds to its respective character's country of origin. Additionally, Yu is played by a Peking opera singer (Shi Min), Juliet by a Western opera soprano (Nancy Allen Lundy), and Koharu by aJapanese puppeteer (Jusaburō Tsujimura). As inOrchestra Theatre II: Re, the orchestra is distributed onstage and amongst the audience.The Gate also incorporates video, but unlike the prerecorded images used inRed Forecast, a projection screen displays live images of the three actress-soloists, manipulated in real time by avideo artist. The video artist for the 1999 premiere wasElaine J. McCarthy.[32][33]
Many of Tan Dun's works call for instruments made of materials such as paper, stone, or water, but the compositions that he classifies as "organic music" feature these instruments most prominently. The first major work for organic instruments was hisWater Concerto for Water Percussion and Orchestra (1998), dedicated toToru Takemitsu. According to the composer, the sounds made by the soloist are inspired by the sounds of everyday life growing up in Hunan.[34] Basins are filled with water, and the contents are manipulated with bowls, bottles, hands, and other devices. Other water instruments used include thewaterphone. Various means of amplification are used, includingcontact microphones on the basins.[35]
The techniques devised in theWater Concerto were used again in Tan Dun'sWater Passion After St. Matthew (2000). Written to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the death ofJohann Sebastian Bach, the work for chorus, orchestra, and water percussion follows theGospel of Matthew, beginning withChrist's baptism. The chorus doubles ontingsha, and the soprano and bass soloists double onxun. The score also requires Mongolianovertone singing from the soloists. As withOrchestral Theatre I: O, members of the orchestra play their instruments with techniques borrowed from non-Western traditions.[36][37]
Tan Dun's next major organic work,Paper Concerto for Paper Percussion and Orchestra (2003), explores the acoustic range of paper. Instruments constructed from differing thicknesses of paper are used as cymbals, drums, or reeds. Additionally, sheets of paper are shaken or struck. These sounds are amplified primarily through wireless microphones worn by the musicians.[38] This work was commissioned by theLos Angeles Philharmonic for the opening of theWalt Disney Concert Hall.[39]
Earth Concerto for stone and ceramic percussion and orchestra (2009) draws from Gustav Mahler'sDas Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth), which in turn draws from the poetry of Li Po. Ceramic instruments include percussion instruments similar to those Tan Dun had used in previous works, as well as wind instruments and xun.[40]
In the mid-1990s, Tan Dun began working on another series of orchestral works known as theYi series, named for theI Ching (Yi Jing in pinyin). Each numbered work in the series builds upon the original,Yi°: Concerto for Orchestra (published 2002), by adding a solo instrument. The first concerto in the series,Yi1: Intercourse of Fire and Water (1994), was written for and premiered by cellistAnssi Karttunen.[41] The second work,Yi2: Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra (1996), combinesflamenco andpipa techniques and was premiered bySharon Isbin.[42]
Originally titledSecret Land, Tan Dun wrote a concerto for 12 solo cellos and orchestra calledFour Secret Roads of Marco Polo (2004). Commissioned and premiered by theBerlin Philharmonic, the work is a musical exploration of theSilk Road. To achieve these sounds, the cello soloists employ sitar and pipa techniques.[43][44]
Tan Dun wrote a concerto forLang Lang titledPiano Concerto: "The Fire" (2008), a commission by theNew York Philharmonic.[45] The concerto is reportedly inspired by the composer's love for martial arts, and the soloist is instructed to play certain passages of the music with fists and forearms. Other more tranquil sections evoke ancient Chinese instruments such as theguqin.[46]
In 2008, Tan Dun was commissioned byGoogle andYouTube to write an inaugural symphony for theYouTube Symphony Orchestra (YTSO) project. The resultant work,Internet Symphony No. 1 "Eroica", was recorded by theLondon Symphony Orchestra and uploaded to YouTube in November 2008, thus beginning the open call for video audition submissions. Voted on by members of the YouTube community as well as professional musicians, the YTSO was assembled of 96 musicians from over 30 countries. In April 2009, amashup video of the submissions was premiered at Carnegie Hall, followed by a live performance of the work.[47]
Tan Dun has also conducted theBBC Scottish Symphony to record parts of the albumAway from Xuan by fellow composerChen Yuanlin, released in 2009.[48]
He composed asymphonic poem for piano for pianistYuja Wang titled "Farewell My Concubine for Peking Opera Soprano and Piano".[49]The work was commissioned by theGuangzhou Symphony Orchestra and made its world premiere on 31 July 2015 in Xinghai Concert Hall with the orchestra conducted byLong Yu and Wang as piano soloist.[50][51]
Though not explicitly opera, many of Tan Dun's works borrow operatic elements, in terms of both melody and staging. For example, his violin concerto,Out of Peking Opera (1987, revised 1994), quotesjinghu fiddling music often heard in Peking opera.[52] Additionally,Ghost Opera (1994), forpipa and string quartet, includes minimal sets and lighting. Originally composed on commission forKronos Quartet andWu Man,Ghost Opera has been performed globally and recorded by Kronos forNonesuch Records.[53]
Some of the generic classifications included below are Tan Dun's own concepts, including "organic music" and "music ritual." "Organic music" refers to musical works performed on non-traditional instruments, typically involving organic materials such as paper, water, or stone. "Music ritual" refers to works derived from Chinese spiritual traditions.
| Year | Title | Performers | Label |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Nine Songs: Ritual Opera | Crossings Ensemble and Chorus | CRI |
| 1993 | Snow in June | Ed Spanjaard,Arditti Quartet,Nieuw Ensemble, Talujon Percussion Quartet,Susan Botti, Paul Guergerian,Keri-Lynn Wilson, Gillian Benet,Anssi Karttunen | CRI |
| 1994 | On Taoism / Orchestral Theatre I / Death and Fire — Dialogue with Paul Klee | BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra | Koch Schwann |
| 1996 | Chinese Traditional and Contemporary Music | Wu Man & Ensemble | Nimbus Records |
| 1997 | Ghost Opera | Kronos Quartet, Wu Man,George Crumb | Nonesuch Records |
| 1997 | Heaven Earth Mankind: Symphony 1997 | Yo-Yo Ma | Sony Classical |
| 1997 | Marco Polo: An Opera in an Opera | Netherlands Radio Kamerorkest, Cappella Amsterdam | Sony Classical |
| 1999 | Bitter Love (selections from Peony Pavilion) | Ying Huang | Sony Classical |
| 1999 | 2000 Today: A World Symphony for the New Millenium | BBC Concert Orchestra | Sony Classical |
| 2000 | Under the Silver Moon | Susan Glaser, Emily Mitchell, Matthew Gold, Stephanie Griffin | Koch International Classics |
| 2001 | Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon | Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai National Orchestra, Shanghai Percussion Ensemble, Yo-Yo Ma,Coco Lee | Sony Classical |
| 2001 | Rouse: Concert de Gaudi / Tan Dun: Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra | Sharon Isbin,Muhai Tang,Gulbenkian Orchestra | Teldec |
| 2002 | Out of Peking Opera / Death and Fire / Orchestra Theatre II: Re | Cho-Liang Lin, Muhai Tang,Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra | Ondine |
| 2002 | Water Passion After St. Matthew | Maya Beiser,Mark O'Connor, Elizabeth Keusch, Stephen Bryant,RIAS Kammerchor | Sony Classical |
| 2004 | Hero (soundtrack) | Kodo, You Yan, Liu Li,Itzhak Perlman | Sony Classical |
| 2004 | Lang Lang: Live at Carnegie Hall (includes Tan Dun'sEight Memories in Watercolor) | Lang Lang | DG |
| 2006 | Majestic Charm | Singapore Chinese Orchestra | – |
| 2006 | The Banquet (soundtrack) | – | – |
| 2008 | Sticks and Stones: Music for Percussion and Strings (features Tan Dun'sSnow in June) | Marjorie Bagley, Roger Braun, Michael Carrera, Kristin Agee, Seth Haines, Joseph van Hassel, Steven Huang | Equilibrium |
| 2008 | Tan Dun: Pipa Concerto / Hayashi: Viola Concerto / Takemitsu: Nostalghia | Roman Balashov, Wu Man,Yuri Bashmet, Moscow Soloists | Onyx Classics |
| 2011 | Bach to Tan Dun (includes Tan Dun'sEight Memories in Watercolor) | Beijing Guitar Duo (Su Meng &Wang Yameng) | Tonar Music |
| 2011 | Martial Arts Trilogy | Yo-Yo Ma, Lang Lang, Itzhak Perlman | Sony Classical |
| 2012 | Concerto for Orchestra | Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra | Naxos Records |
| 2015 | The Tears of Nature | Martin Grubinger | – |
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| Other |
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