Wicked GOAT presents Tan Dun’s epic Ghost Opera.

In composing Ghost Opera, Tan was inspired by childhood memories of the shamanistic “ghost operas” of the Chinese peasant culture. “My whole village was crazy,” Tan Dun told Brooke Gladstone for the liner notes of the album. “We had a professional crying team available for hire at funerals and deaths… a shamanistic choir to set the mournful tone. In Hunan, where I grew up, people believed they would be rewarded for their sufferings after death. Death was the ‘white happiness,’ and musical rituals launched the spirit into the territory of the new life. Instruments were improvised: pots and pans, kitchen tools and bells. The celebration of the remote was grounded in everyday life… The tradition of ‘ghost opera’ is thousands of years old. The performer of ‘ghost opera’ has a dialogue with his past and future life – a dialogue between past and future, spirit and nature.”

This special performance of Ghost Opera features the Lyris String Quartet and PCM faculty Celia Liu.

Lyris String Quartet
Alyssa Park, violin
Shalini Vijayan, violin
Luke Maurer, viola
Timothy Loo, cello