"'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' Fervor" Concert Staged in BeijingChinese composer Tan Dun conducted a portion of his Academy Award winning musical score for the film "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" in Beijing Friday, leading the China Philharmonic Orchestra and David Cossin, a world-renowned percussionist.The concert, dubbed "'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' Fervor" is an important part of the 4th Beijing Music Festival, which started in the Chinese capital on October 15. Tan invited cellist Maya Beiser and Chinese bamboo flutist Tang Junqiao to perform the piece, which is a cello concerto mixed with multimedia special effects. Playing simultaneously onstage was a video of the film, which garnered the Oscar for Best Foreign Film of 2000 at the Academy Awards ceremony in March of this year. The movie was directed by internationally acclaimed director Ang Lee, who is from Taiwan. Tan also performed another of his masterpieces, "Concerto for Water Percussion and Orchestra", with David Cossin. According to the organizer, Beijing Capital Entertainment Management Co. Ltd., the "Concerto for Water Percussion and Orchestra" has won Tan international fame as an experimental musician. Tan was cited by the New York Times as one of the "Classical Musicians of the Year" for 1997, and many of his works, which mix western and eastern music elements, have been performed throughout the world. It was learned he is now working on two operas based on Chinese history. The music festival, which ends November 8, will feature 1,500 artists from China and 14 other countries, and includes operas, symphony orchestras, chamber music, Chinese folk music, rock concerts and a children's concert. Co-sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and the Beijing municipal government, it has been held annually since 1998, attracting a total of 7,000 artists from at home and abroad staging nearly 100 performances for each festival. |
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