"Classical music downloads done right" - CNET Please select ... Album Title Work Title Composer Performer Ensemble Conductor Label Barcode Catalogue Number My Passionato Help Login Home ... Instruments Tan Dun Conductor Catalogue Read Bio View Albums View Works Essential Recordings Top Rated Recordings Chart Tan Dun Tan Dun is a leading Chinese-born composer and one of the most prominent in the genre of "world classical" music. He was raised by his grandmother in central Hunan, a region with distinct linguistic and folk identity, including a shamanistic culture. Tan Dun was conscripted to "re-education" (i.e., forced labor) to the exhausting toil of rice planting as part of Mao's disastrous "Cultural Revolution" policy. To keep his mind occupied, he listened to and wrote down local folk music.
Tan made arrangements of the tunes using whatever folk instruments and other noisemakers were available (including things such as woks and agricultural implements) creating often fantastic effects. Tan played the erhu, the one-string traditional Chinese fiddle. By the time he was 17, he was the musical leader of the village, playing celebrations, weddings, and funerals. Then a riverboat carrying a Peking-style Chinese Opera troupe capsized, killing many musicians. Tan was immediately sent to join the company as a replacement.
When the Central Conservatory reopened in 1978, Tan won one of thirty slots for composition students over thousands of applicants. He was taught by Li Yinghai and Zhao Xingdao, and visiting lecturers Alexander George, Hans Werner Henze, Chou Wen-Chung, Isang Yun, George Crumb, and Toru Takemitsu. Tan became a leader in a developing "New Wave" of art when he wrote, at age 22, a symphony (Li Sao), based on a fourth century B.C.E. Hunan lament. The work, for western symphony orchestra, won a special "incentive" prize at the first National Symphonic Competition. | |
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