The conceptual and multifaceted composer/conductor Tan Dun has made an indelible mark on the world's music scene with a creative repertoire that spans the boundaries of classical, multimedia, Eastern and Western musical systems. A winner of today's most prestigious honors — the Grawemeyer Award for classical composition, Grammy Award, Academy Award (Oscar) for the “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” film score, and Musical America's "Composer of The Year" — Tan Dun's music has been played throughout the world by the leading orchestras, opera houses, international festivals, and on radio and television. Recent compositions include a new opera, The First Emperor, commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera of New York, which premiered on December 21, 2006 with Tan Dun conducting; Piano Concerto “The Fire” for pianist Lang Lang and The New York Philharmonic; Secret Land for the Berlin Philharmonic; Paper Concerto for The Los Angeles Philharmonic; the opera Tea: A Mirror of Soul for Suntory Hall and The Netherlands Opera; and The Map: Concerto for Cello, Video and Orchestra for Yo Yo Ma and the Boston Symphony. Tan Dun has been recently nominated as the music consultant for the Opening Ceremonies of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.Based in New York, Tan Dun was born in Hunan, China.  Having served as a rice-planter and performer of Peking opera during the Cultural Revolution, he later studied at Beijing’s Central Conservatory. There he encountered Western classical music for the first time, discovering a range of 20th-century repertoire previously suppressed in China.  Tan Dun soon became the leading composer of the “New Wave” of contemporary music in China, which embraced a new cultural pluralism in the arts that began to develop in the early 1980s. Tan Dun moved to New York in 1986 upon receiving a scholarship from Columbia University, where he completed his Doctor of Musical Arts degree (1993).