Tan Dun’s Wolf Totem

Composer of the music score to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Tan Dun is an extraordinary talent who is equally at home writing for the cinema, concert hall or opera house. The world’s great orchestras have been lining up to perform his music, including the Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony, and New York Philharmonic.

The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra is part of a syndicate of international orchestras which has commissioned Tan Dun’s Wolf Totem: Concerto for Double Bass, a work which the Chinese-born composer has described as “an elegy of the prairie and blue skies”.

Noted for his dazzling use of instrumental colours, Tan Dun is one of the world’s finest orchestrators. Igor Stravinsky likewise knew how to conjure up extraordinary sounds from the orchestra, particularly in the radiantly beautiful suite from The Firebird, and Tōru Takemitsu married Western sounds and Eastern influences with remarkable skill.

Do you hear the call of the wild?…