August 21, 2008. Shanghai campus - On invitation by China Europe International Business School President Zhu Xiaoming, Oscar-winning Chinese musician Tan Dun today visited CEIBS to share his creative ideas behind the music of the Olympic Award Ceremony. The address was part of the events staged to welcome CEIBS' MBA 2008 Class of 189 students. The students were only part of the audience of more than 400, which also included CEIBS faculty, staff, alumni as well as almost 20 members of the domestic and international media. Thousands of CEIBS alumni who were unable to make it to the Shanghai campus also watched Tan Dun's presentation via a live video connection supplied by Sina.com.
(From left) Mr. Caokefan, CEIBS President Zhu Xiaoming, Mr. Tan Dun, CEIBS Vice President and Co-Dean Zhang Weijiong
"The China European International Business School has become an incubator for excellent business leaders," said CEIBS President Zhu Xiaoming in his welcome speech. He added that CEIBS aims to cultivate globally competitive strong business leaders who are also cultured, are the epitome of good taste, are capable of profound thinking, and possess good personalities. These traits, he said, are loftier goals than mere 'success'by itself.
In his address, the composer Tan Dun was equally profound, telling his audience, "Everybody is trying to provide a platform for political exchange, cultural exchange. But we also need a philosophical platform. So recently in all my music, I'm interested in trying to find not just the phenomenon of harmonics, like water meets fire, but an internal basic Chinese philosophy."
The Chinese philosophy that interests Tan most is Zen, another name for Chan which originated in China around the seventh century. "Among all Chinese philosophy, Zen is the most predesigned by the gods for the future," Tan said. "Zen can be the philosophical guide for all people to share in the 21st century. I want to pass on this Zen experience."
The Olympics has presented Tan with a major opportunity to do just this. Tan composed the logo music that will resound at the start of each event - 18,000 times, according to him - and the award music that will be played when each of the 6,000 Olympic medals is presented to winning athletes.
Composing for a major athletic event presents challenges that commissions for concert halls and opera houses do not. "Sports music has a specific way to handle speed, key changes, mode; it is very intense," Tan said. "We had to analyze normal people's walking speed and sportsmen's walking speed and average it - we had to find a middle way for the tempo to have the most comfortable pacing for everyone."
In his search for a philosophical base for his Olympic music, he was determined to find something that would both preserve the Olympic spirit and "be a key which lets people open the door to China".
"I was struggling to find a format, an inspiration," Tan continued. "Then one day I was in Beijing and the winner of the Olympic gold medal design was announced - it was gold and jade together. So I started researching this in the Chinese encyclopaedia."
Tan soon came upon the term "jinshengyuzhen" - gold sound and jade vibrations - and discovered that it was both a musical and religious term that is carved in temples across China.
"It is the very high stage of Taoism - it expresses the highest state of harmony. So I decided I wanted to use gold and jade materials to make my music."
Tan chose a giant bianzhong - an ancient instrument consisting of bronze bells hung on a wooden frame - to represent the gold. For the jade, he consulted with specialists at the Hubei Museum (which is home to China's most important bianzhong, dating to 433 B.C.) and bought five tons of gray-green jade with which to create "a stone orchestra" that he designed himself. The nine sets of jade instruments, which cover the same scale as a piano, were carved by 55 workers over a six-month period and then trucked to Beijing for the recording session.
"So now the 'gold' and jade ensemble serves as the basic ceremonial colours mixed with the China Philharmonic symphony and chorus," Tan said. "We took very, very ancient culture and very, very modern culture and they will meet at the Olympics."
This same sort of philosophical convergence occurs in Tan's opera "Tea," which was staged last week at the National Centre for the Performing Arts. Since its 2002 premiere in Japan, "Tea" has been performed in New Zealand, France, the United States and the Netherlands, but this was its China premiere - and, in fact, the first time one of the composer's four operas has been staged in his homeland.
About Tan Dun
Tan Dun, with his unique understanding of music and his unusually rich heritage of Chinese culture, has blazed his own trail of composition, distinguishing himself from the conventional. His major works include: Operas 'The First Emperor', 'Marco Polo' and 'Tea', Water Concerto for Water Percussion and Orchestra, Paper Concerto for Paper Instruments and Orchestra (Organic Music), 'The Map' (Multimedia & Orchestra), and the Oscar Award-winning original score for the film 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'. He is also the winner of today's most prestigious honours including the Grawemeyer Award for classical composition, and the Grammy Award. His latest Piano Concerto 'The Fire'will be premiered by pianist Lang Lang on August 27 at Shanghai Grand Theatre.
