Tan Dun conducts the Seattle Symphony in his “Nu Shu: The Secret Songs of Women,” with harpist Xavier de Maistre. Photo by James Holt/The Seattle Symphony.
In last Friday’s (5/16) Memeteria.com (Seattle), Thomas May writes, “A concert built around … composer, conductor, and cultural connector Tan Dun offers no shortage of conceptual fascination. This week’s concerts mark his turn to the Seattle Symphony podium after a memorable debut here two and a half years ago … Shaped equally by Western classical forms and ancient Chinese traditions, Tan—who since 1986 has been based in the US—brings a theatrical imagination and a deep sense of ritual to the concert stage. He framed last night’s program with … works by [de Falla and Stravinsky]…. [In] Concerto for Water Percussion and Orchestra, composed by Tan in 1998 … percussionist Yuri Yamashita not only performed the solo part but dominated much of the piece … from the way she mindfully released droplets from her fingers to the immersive sound world she conjured … The orchestra functioned as a kind of elemental chorus … The highlight of the program was ‘Nu Shu: The Secret Songs of Women’—a 13-part multimedia concerto that unfolded with greater emotional clarity and formal cohesion than the Water Concerto. ‘Nu Shu’ originated as a commission for a harp concerto from the Philadelphia Orchestra but … grew into a sui generis fusion of concerto, orchestral narrative, and ethnomusicological-sociological documentary.”
