Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Tan Dun and Robert Wells on Olympic Music

www.eol.cn, August 6, 2008

"Both Academy Award winner Tan Dun and world-renowned pianist Robert Wells agree: Beijing's Olympic music must have Chinese tones.

The two composers were on hand on Tuesday to talk about their cooperation and involvement in creating Olympic music to be used for demonstration events and medal ceremonies during the 2008 Summer Games." Continue reading >>

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I look forward to hearing their musics.

I read through both the English and the Chinese version of the story. Are they supposed to be translations for each other?

If the answer is yes, then I found it's odd that in the Chinese version, what Tan Dun said is translated as "谭盾表示,中国是有着五千年悠久历史的闻名古国,改革开放和现代化建设又使中国快速稳定的发展。这样的古典与现代的结合,将更好的向全世界展示中国的形象和北京的形象。" While in the English version, Tan Dun is talking about yuan fen.

Why is the Chinese version of part of Tan Dun's remark so propaganda like? I'm surprised and not surprised. And it's sad if it's what I think.

Xujun said...

Ha! I didn't read the Chinese version so I didn't even notice this. It looks to me like the English version is more accurate - with the presence of Wells, the original interview must have been conducted in English. If someone has put a non-existent passage in Tan Dun's mouth for the Chinese translation, that is hilarious.