During the Cultural Revolution, Tan Dun planted rice on the Huangjin Commune and was forbidden to study music. Decades later he won an Academy Award, wrote for the Metropolitan Opera, and conducted the world's leading orchestras. This episode traces that journey from a childhood in Changsha listening to village shamans make music with water, rocks and ceramic bowls, through a secret commune ensemble and the ferry tragedy that put him in a Peking opera troupe, to the Central Conservatory in Beijing in 1977 and doctoral study at Columbia University under Chou Wen-chung.

We explore the revelation of George Crumb lowering a gong into water, the Paul Klee-inspired dissertation symphony Death and Fire, and the organic music that followed: Tea, A Mirror of Soul with acts named Water, Paper and Ceramic, the Water Passion after St. Matthew with ampl ...