Crouching Tiger composer to set mood for medals

By Catherine Bremer

BEIJING (Reuters) - The Oscar-winning composer whose "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" soundtrack awed cinema audiences across the West is providing the mood music at the Olympics medal ceremonies in Beijing.

Composer Tan Dun blended a historic recording of sacred bronze "chime bells" from an ancient Chinese tomb with the sound of jade musical stone to create a gentle clanging melody that will be the backdrop for tearjerker medal awards at the Games.

The Olympics are famous for producing goosebump-inducing music, and a yet-to-be released album of some 30 tracks for the Beijing Games is expected to sell heavily worldwide.

"When I was composing the music for the award ceremony, I was thinking 'what makes a champion?'" China's Tan said on Tuesday, as Beijing organizers unveiled the tunes that will play before during and after athletes get their medals.

Tan said he was moved by the 2,400-years-old dual-pitch sound of a set of two-tone bells excavated in the 1970s from the tomb of the Marquis Yi of Zeng in Hubei province.

The bells had such perfect pitch that they were rung during the 1997 ceremony to herald Hong Kong's return from Britain to China and Tan based his Olympics composition around that recording, blended with more modern Chinese sounds.

"The sound comes from the heart of the Chinese," he said.

Many in the West had never heard China's spine-tingling traditional music until Ang Lee's magical martial arts film "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" filled cinemas around the world, earning four Oscars in 2001 including best original score for Tan's music.