Tan Dun leads The Orchestra Now in 'An Afternoon at the Aviary'

Grammy and Academy Award-winning composer and conductor Tan Dun returns to Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater to lead TŌN in An Afternoon at the Aviary, the Orchestra's last performance in New York City this season, on Sunday, May 21 at 3 PM. The bird-themed program includes two of Dun's own works: Passacaglia: Secret of Wind and Birds and Contrabass Concerto: Wolf Totem; as well as Dinicu's The Lark and Stravinsky's The Firebird Suite.

Tan Dun Conducts: An Afternoon at the Aviary

Sunday, May 21, 2023 at 3 PM

Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Hall

Tan Dun, conductor

Yida An, violin

Milad Daniari, bass

Grigoraș Dinicu: Ciocârlia (The Lark)

Tan Dun: Contrabass Concerto: Wolf Totem

Tan Dun: Passacaglia: Secret of Wind and Birds

Igor Stravinsky: The Firebird Suite

Romanian violin virtuoso and composer Grigoraş Ionică Dinicu's spectacular Ciocârlia (The Lark) opens the concert. Based on a Romanian folk music tune supposedly composed by his grandfather Angheluș Dinicu for the pan flute, the virtuosic work is a soloist showpiece, performed by violinist Yida An, a 2024 graduate of Bard Conservatory's Graduate Instrumental Arts Program. Tan Dun's Contrabass Concerto: Wolf Totem, was inspired by the Chinese novel Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong, which describes the dying culture of the Mongols. The symbol of the Mongolian wolf-represented by the bass-and its life in the grasslands mirrored for the composer the human spirit and our relationship to the natural world. Bassist Milad Daniari, a graduate of TŌN's inaugural class, is featured. Tan Dun's second work on the program, Passacaglia: Secret of Wind and Birds, was commissioned by Carnegie Hall in 2015 for the National Youth Orchestra of the USA and draws on both Eastern and Western musical forms. The work incorporates sounds of nature with those digitally recorded and played on smartphones, turning the devices into instruments that reflect on modern life. The afternoon closes with Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, a ballet and orchestral concert work commissioned by ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev for the 1920 season of his Ballets Russes. The plot tells the story of an evil ogre's defeat through the intervention of the Firebird, a miraculous creature from Russian fairytales. The work's premiere brought the relatively unknown Stravinsky to international acclaim.

Tickets priced at $25-$50 are available online at jazz.org, by calling CenterCharge at 212.721.6500, or at the Jazz at Lincoln Center box office at Broadway & 60th, Ground Floor. Ticket holders will need to comply with the venue's health and safety requirements, which can be found here.