"When the sound of the birds and water came back it was so dramatic I thought to myself 'My god, this is opera... This is why they used to perform opera in the garden, instead of on a stage."

——Tan Dun

Chinese composer

"He [Tan Dun] has really transformed world music by his amazing integration and blending of Western and Eastern traditional music, the blending of classical with contemporary musical form."

——Maxwell K. Hearn Director of Asia Department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art