Tan Dun, A Musical Journey Back To Roots

By Author: pangsiyan
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Chinese-born composer Tan Dun staged a musical map linking west to east in his home country Friday night to show how his Chinese roots have continued to grow. The internationally acclaimed musician brought Fenghuang Village in his home province of central China's Hunan his symbolic work " The Map-. Saving Disappearing Music Traditions2". The piece was premiered3 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and cellist Yo-Yo Ma with the composer himself conducting earlier this year, and was performed on Friday by the Shanghai Orchestra.

Wearing an orange sweater and blue jacket, the 46-year-old composer reflected his well-known musical repertoire4 spanning both Eastern and Western music with a dressing taste featuring drastically contrasting colors. Tan, referring to Friday's show as a "thanks-giving" performance, was excited to present the 206 Concerto for Cello5, Video and Orchestra before an audience of 3000, most of whom were local Miao and Tujia ethnic minority people6. The orchestra's string section was accompanied by traditional Chinese instruments such as the bamboo flute and hand drum, and an ethnic Miao group.

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... Xian'e, a singer with the Miao ethnic group said that the music moved her to tears after she performed a song with a male singer from the Tujia ethnic minority group as an accompaniment7 to the orchestra. " We are thrilled to have our music back home after the piece has toured around the world , " said the 25-year-old, who had never heard an orchestra before.

"The Map" was the product of Tan Dun's 1999 inspirational tour to the eastern part of Hunan Province, where many ethnic minority groups live. In the orchestra, age-old Chinese ethnic minority melodies and modern western music were mingled with videotapes featuring remote and untapped natural landscapes in Hunan, making "The Map" a multimedia program crossing lines between classical and non-classical, East and West, avant-garde and indige¬nous8 art forms.

As a musician whose primary interest over the past 20 years has been material izing concepts of multiculturalism and multimedia through music, Tan Dun has also encountered sporadic criticism on his meaningless, unreasonable and haphazard combination of different art forms9 . " I respect any criticism , which usually come from my best friends and can remind me of things that I

sometimes fail to realize, " said Tan. Always excited by the challenges of mu-sic production, Tan has become increasingly involved in connecting tradition with modernity through his music.

Musical critics said The Map is much more like a cultural-heritage protection project than an orchestra because Tan Dun vividly recorded the endangered music of Chinese ethnic minority groups and used them as inspiration to write melodic lines for cello and the orchestra.

A staff member from the Beijing Representative Office of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO)10 said Friday in Hunan that The Map helps people to reconceptualize11 themselves and their own cultures and enables the world to experience beautiful Chinese melodies in the generations to come.

"Music is the wellspring12 of internal feelings and my music is completely based on the Chinese culture," said Tan. "I am always a Chinese-Chinese" in all aspects. I have never been and will never become a Chinese of other countries. "