Composer returns to say thank you to New Zealand

By MIKE HOULAHAN

Tan Dun says he has a lot to thank New Zealand for. Today, the great orchestras and opera houses of the world, including the Metropolitan Opera and the Berlin Philharmonic, demand new pieces from the Chinese-born, New York-based composer.

Beyond the orchestral sphere, Tan gained worldwide recognition after his distinctive music for the hit film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won him an Oscar.

However, it might never have happened if the then little-known composer had not come to New Zealand in 1988 for a stint as composer-in-residence at Wellington's Victoria University.

"That time my first impressions of the culture of the Maori people reminded me of the indigenous cultures of China," Tan says. "It reminded me of the urgent need for those cultures to survive."

The experience buried a seed within him, a seed which led him to write many subsequent pieces of music, including The Map, one of two works he will conduct the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra as part of the New Zealand International Arts Festival.

"The culture shock of meeting the Maori people helped me to remain in contact with indigenous cultures and the memories of my childhood. I feel special and very honoured to bring The Map to New Zealand," Tan says.

If the journey from academic to world-renowned film composer seems unlikely, it is nothing compared with the journey which took Tan from a rural village in Hunan to the bustle of Manhattan, which he now calls home.

Music was a constant part of life in the village of Si Mao, near the Laos border, he says. Not many people owned instruments, but kitchen utensils, water bowls, paper, stones and other everyday items were used instead.

He learned to play the violin and became skilled enough to be taken off farm duties and sent to join the Beijing Opera Orchestra.

A promising career seemed likely, but Tan's arrival in the big city was followed by the Cultural Revolution, when artists faced compulsory "re-education" to become at one with the workers.

"The Cultural Revolution was a disaster which affected everybody," Tan says. "I was pretty much in the fields, planting rice and collecting folk songs. Of course, I saw many people killed but I was sent to the countryside by Mao Tse Tung - I accepted re-education, where I learned how to plant rice and had several harsh jobs in the fields.

"During that bitter time I became much stronger and gained the ability to connect with new people. I did collect a lot of folk songs, so those years for me were bittersweet. They were hard, but I gained a lot as an artist."

After the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution subsided, Tan studied at the Beijing Central Conservatory, then moved to the United States to study at Columbia University.

He quickly gained a reputation as a leading avant-garde composer, but Tan says he wasn't trying to be different or daring - just reflecting his life and upbringing. "Everybody has childhood memories, and I think artists have to honestly reflect those experiences," Tan says.

"Many people may think I bring together influences from Eastern and Western music but to me, today, I write from whatever my experiences give me.

"I was brought up in an indigenous culture in a mountain village in Hunan, but I have lived in Manhattan for almost 20 years. Those two worlds are almost impossible to separate, and they have become my one world. It is an interesting way to inspire my creations."

During the festival concert, the NZSO will perform Concerto For Water Percussion, during which the players dip into and slosh around bowls of water, and The Map.

Both pieces are deeply associated with childhood memories from his rural village, Tan says. Water was central to everything: from washing clothes to growing vegetables and swimming in the river, and he would always hear women singing and making music with water.

"That stuck in my mind. From when I started writing for symphony orchestra I always wanted to bring this childhood memory back."

The Map was inspired by the superstitions and shamanistic rituals the villagers practised. Several are in danger of being forgotten, and in 1999 Tan returned home with audio and video recording equipment to capture the rituals before they vanished.

After composing The Map he returned home once more, this time with a symphony orchestra, to perform the work in concert. It was the first time he had brought his music back to the village he had left 25 years before.

"That night, more than 30,000 people came and we performed on a stage on the river," Tan recalls. "It was a very moving event, because all those thousands of people had never heard an orchestra before.

"The Map was a piece composed from music collected from their villages and had been performed in big cities around the world, but was finally being returned home. It was unusual because I'm used to hearing the piece described by Westerners as having new sounds and being avant-garde ideas, but to them it was very familiar."

China is now a much more open society, Tan says, and he returns home every year for a big project such as a festival.

However, his biggest China-related project came via Hollywood when Ang Lee commissioned him to compose the music for his film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Tan agreed because the film offered the possibility of doing things that were more experimental. However, he did not realise the enormous difficulties the film would raise in creating a score that was geographically honest but also musically coherent.

"They are in the Gobi Desert in the northwest part of China and northeastern cities like Beijing, but then in the bamboo forests of southern China," Tan says.

"That was a headache for the director but I thought it was a wonderful chance for the music to try to unify those three places as one. I used one single cello, but with a different way of playing for each location.

"I found that stimulating, and it gave me a lot of ideas. Challenge is an advantage for creation, and makes for an interesting project."

Performance

* Who: Tan Dun, with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

* Where and when: Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington, March 20

- NZPA