I attended the premier of the wonderful concert " Water, Paper and Earth" by the composer Tan Dun in Bologna. A trilogy of organic music.
In the dressing room I asked Tan Dun what I could expect that evening, and was told that it would be an organic concert, that is to say, a concert inspired by natural sounds of organic materials; water music , paper music and terracotta music, memories of his childhood in Hunan, China, where the artist grew up. He insisted that I particularly concentrate on the water concert, his favorite.
Tan Dun is a composer of classical and contemporary music, known for winning an Oscar for the soundtrack of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and for having composed the music for the medal presentation ceremony of the Beijing Olympics 2008, where he played 2400 years old bronze bells.
I wouldn't call myself a great connoisseur of music; my appreciation springs from my emotions and intuition. I left immersed in thoughts of rural life, evoked by a past time in the artist's life surrounded by nature.
It was not just a musical performance; It stimulated other senses as well. The set design of the Water concert was spectacular, with artists creating music in tanks of water, sometimes with their hands and at other times with the help of glass, clay, metal ... and interacting with the orchestra.
Foto: Alejandra de Argos
The Paper concert featured instruments made from paper, which produced sounds similar to the wind. The sight of the artists performing with their instruments was a truly powerful image.
"We are surrounded by paper in our lives: our imaginations are captured and recorded in words or pictures, as we express newly discovered feelings about ourselves and the world around us. For a long time, I have been developing the idea of organic music, which embodies sounds of nature, water, paper, ceramics, and the mind. The enviroment is related to our lives, and spiritually, everything germinates from one seed of creativity " Tan Dun.
The third and final concert of the trilogy, Earth, was both a visual and musical experience, accompanied by instruments made with terracotta played masterfully. An ancestral wind instrument was played by a musician sitting close to Tan Dun.
Foto:Alejandra de Argos
"Organic music concerns both matters of everyday life and matters of the heart. These ideas find their origin in the animistic notion that material objects have spirits residing in them, an idea ever-present in the old village where I grew up in China. Paper can talk to the violin, the violin to water. Water can communicate with trees, and trees with the moon, and so on. In other words, every little things in the totality of things, the entire universe, has a life and a soul. " Tan Dun.
This theory that matter is animated also appears in the West Hylozoism doctrine that dates back to the pre-Socratic era. Thales of Mileto, the first philosopher, talked about it, in comments about magnets and amber.
Tan Dun was also in charge of the music at the fireworks display by Cai Guo-Qiang in Paris of which I wrote about in my post Sex + Explosives = Art in Paris
I recommend to those not familiar with this artist to look for and to enjoy his works. He is a genius of this century that's worth knowing.
Tan Dun/Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra: Paper Concerto (2007)
Tan Dun/Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra: Water Concerto (2007)
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