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Palm Sunday, March 20, 2005 at 7 pm
Tuesday, March 22, 2005 at 7:30 pm

The first thing you see is a stage defined by 17 transparent water bowls, lit from below, that form a large cross. The first words you hear are “a sound is heard in water,” echoed by the gentlest of drops from percussionists. Then, we take the plunge. Catapulted to fame by his Oscar- and Grammy-winning score for the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the Chinese-American Tan Dun again astonishes.

Water drips, flows, bubbles, gurgles, ripples, crashes, splashes, hisses, is stirred and struck, and transformed into the star of a unique orchestral ensemble. Percussionists play exotic water instruments, soda bottles, Tibetan cymbals, chimes, stones and timpani enhanced by electronically-processed music of ancient stringed instruments. A conventional Western violin and cello find an extraordinary range of sounds and, then, an entirely different tuning of their instruments in the second half of the work. Moments of shattering intensity and frenzy contrast with silence and stillness. Whispers, shouts, chants, laughter, Mongolian overtone singing and the high-pitched “calligraphy” of Eastern Opera vocal traditions emerge from the chorus as they play river stones and Tibetan finger bells and rattle thunder sheets.

Drenched with metaphysical metaphors for cleansing and renewal that recall ancient Chinese water rituals from the village where he grew up, Tan Dun’s work was commissioned by Helmuth Rilling for the 250th anniversary of the death of J.S. Bach. New York Newsday calls Water Passion “a work of captivating visual music and sound meticulously disposed in space. Tan plays with watery symbols of baptism, creation and rebirth… [he] is sensationally inventive with sound, and the play of timbres.” As darkness gives way to light, the work ends as it begins — with water and the promise of a time to love, a time of peace.

For more information on composer Tan Dun, go to www.tandunonline.com.

Concert sponsor: This concert is generously sponsored in part by the American Express Company and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Download a guide to the season: chorale-seasonguide0405.pdf, 808KB