Tan Dun recently won a well-deserved Oscar for the musical score of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which featured Yo Yo Ma on cello solos and nicely matched the directing style's east-west blend. However, as a composer, Tan Dun's been making a mark for quite a while now. For example, the Kronos Quartet toured with and recorded his Ghost Opera; he was also given the Grawemeyer Award for his opera Marco Polo.

Tan Dun grew up planting rice in China and now lives in downtown Manhattan. He holds degrees from both Beijing's Central Academy and Columbia University.

For more info, see http://www.tandun.com/