Thanks to the Beijing Music Festival, Beijing's audience will finally see Tan Dun's "The Map" on Sunday night at the Poly Theatre, the last leg of a world tour of 50 concerts since its debut by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in February 2003.
Tan Dun himself takes the baton collaborating with the Beijing Symphony Orchestra, pipa player Lan Weiwei and cellist Anssi Karttunen.
The composer will also give a lecture at the Capital Normal University to tell the story of how "The Map" comes into being as well as his view of composition. Students at Harvard, Columbia and 50 normal universities around the world will join in on the internet.
After Shanghai, Chengdu, Shenzhen and Hong Kong, Beijing is the last city in Tan Dun's China tour of "The Map."
He has just arrived Friday from Hong Kong where he conducted the Hong Kong Symphony Orchestra in a performance of "The Map" and "Paper Concerto" and gave a similar seminar to the music students of Hong Kong University.
He demonstrated how to produce music from paper and stone and said he is exploring compositions based on the sounds from nature such as water, paper and stone. He calls it "organic music" and said plans to form an orchestra to play such "organic music."
He told the Hong Kong students: "My composition is to structure sounds. Sound exists everywhere. But the nice sound would be wasted if it was not structured well."
Talking about "The Map," Tan Dun prefers it a "project" rather than a "work."
He said it's a long-term project. It started in the winter of 1999 when he went back to Xiangxi (west of Central China's Hunan Province), where he was born, to collect the folk music.
Then he created music based on the collection.
He held a concert late last November at the Fenghuang County to some 3,000 local audience, most of whom are Miao, Tujia minorities and it was the first concert they've ever seen.
The concert was made into a documentary DVD and released by Deutshe Grammophon to let more people to share the experience.
Tan Dun then planned a world tour of live performances.
Tan said so far, nearly 50 symphony orchestras have performed "The Map" and he hopes the number will increase to 1,000 in a few years including the top ten such as the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
"People are deeply touched by hearing vanishing folk music which is haunted by the dialogue between the original folk sound and modern music," said Tan.
The busy composer is in great demand around the world. He gives lectures and demonstrations to students wherever he stops in a city.
"Today's students are potential concert-goers some 10 years from now and will be devoted sponsors of music."
He also revealed that the main sponsor of his China tour this year was a young man who listened to his lectures 15 years ago.
"The young generation is fascinated by the pop stars and latest entertainment forms. It's our duty to let them know more about the tradition culture and their 'root,'" he added.
Compared with some 10 years ago, Tan said he feels that more and more people outside the music profession are starting to enjoy his music.
"The trend of contemporary music in the 20th century was anti-rhythm, anti-melody, anti-culture, so my works from the 1980s and early 1990s were abstract and not pleasant to the ear. But now I work on the opposite direction and show more concern for the common people including the villagers," said Tan.
"Actually, I draw much inspiration from the peasants and my music mainly derives from the villages. When I performed at Xiangxi, I found the villagers appreciated my music better than those in the cities. These villagers have no conventional view of music, but some of the well-educated do have some restrictions."
Tan stresses that he composes for the general public instead of the so called elites who might not understand music indeed.
"I believe compositions cannot be extricated from society. To be successful, the work needs feedback from audiences.
Obviously, his primary interest is in creating programs that reach a new and diverse audience and break the boundaries between classical and non-classical, East and West, avant-garde and indigenous art forms.
His next "project," the opera "Emperor Qin Shihuang" commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera House, will be another typical example.
Tan will collaborate with Chinese film director Zhang Yimou to use the high-tech and latest theatrical forms as well to produce an opera for the public, especially those who are not opera-goers.
"Why I choose Zhang Yimou to be the director is because he is sensitive to the visual arts," Tan said, noting that Zhang studied photographic art at the Beijing Academy of Film.
"I belonged to the ancient Chu State while Zhang's origins were in the Qin State. Although these two states always fought in ancient times, I needed a person of Qin ancestry to direct the opera to tell the Qin story," Tan said.
Tan also revealed at the Friday press conference that for quite a long time, he stayed in Xi'an with a group of Qinqiang singers. "I've learned a lot from them," Tan said, adding that he has finished the draft.
The Metropolitan will present the opera starring Domingo as the title role Emperor Qin Shihuang in 2006 and Tan wishes the stage will be on the Great Wall.
"That will be a great honor for all Chinese people," he said.
Currently based in New York, Tan was born in Simao of Hunan in 1957. After serving as a rice-planter and performer for the Peking Opera during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), Tan later studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing.
He was offered a fellowship at Columbia University in New York in 1986 and graduated as Doctor of Musical Arts.
The composer, who had never heard even the names, let alone the music, of Bach, Beethoven or Mozart until he was 19, is now a winner of today's most prestigious musical honors including the Grawemeyer Award for classical composition, a Grammy Award, an Academy Award and Musical America's "Composer of The Year."
With his music being played throughout the world by leading orchestras, opera houses, international festivals, and on the radio and television, Tan Dun became instantly known by global audiences for the music he produced for the Academy Award-winning martial arts fantasy "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," directed by Taiwan-born director Ang Lee in 2001.
(China Daily October 30, 2004)
