The Seattle Collaborative Orchestra with Dr. Anna Edwards, Music Director, performed Passacaglia: Secret of Wind and Birds by Tan Dun March 14, 2023, at Shorewood High School Auditorium in Shoreline, WA.
Audio & Video: Dr. Mike Matesky, Rick Chinn, Rick Ravenscroft and Mark Edman
An Opus 4 Studios Location Recording.
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Notes on Tan Dun’s Passacaglia: Secret of Wind and Birds by Kate Greer

Tan Dun was born on August 18th, 1957 in the Hunan Province of China. Since a young age, Dun had been fascinated by the ritual music performed by village shamen, using natural objects including rocks and water. And as a teenager living thru China’s cultural revolution, he was sent to a rice farm as a picker. There he ended up joining the Commune's orchestra, Peking Opera Troupe, as a violinist and arranger. In 1977 he started his studies at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. In 1986 Tan moved to New York to Study at Columbia University under the instruction of Chou Wen-Chung. And in 2019 he became the dean of the music department at Bard College Conservatory. Dun has written music for everything from operettas, to musicals, to symphonic and chamber music, and everything in between. Throughout his career, he has received numerous awards some of which include: the Bach Prize, and the Shostakovich Award, as well as a Grammy and Academy Award for best original score (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).

Dun’s music is characterized by a fusion of eastern and western sounds. He uses traditional Chinese classical instruments, as well as using modern technology to create a lush timbre. A lot of his pieces reflect the natural world and Passacaglia: Secret of Wind and Birds is no different. This piece was commissioned by Carnegie Hall for the National Youth Orchestra’s tour of China. This work was to embody the primal human desire to communicate with nature as well as optimism for the future. It is comprised of nine repeating eight-bar phrases There are many unique elements of this piece one of them being the use of audience members’ cell phones played on traditional Chinese instruments in order to emulate the sound of birds, winds, and the ocean. Another interesting element of this piece is that towards the end of the work musicians stop playing and whisper this Leonardo da Vinci quote: "In order to arrive at knowledge of the motions of birds in the air, it is first necessary to acquire knowledge of the winds, which we will prove by the motions of water.” This phrase is meant to symbolize ancient tribal chanting.

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