Inspired by a painting at the Mogao Caves that depicts a fabled deer, composer Tan Dun's latest work is a vocal concerto for soprano and orchestra, Chen Nan reports.

For Oscar-winning composer Tan Dun, his ideas about traditional Chinese cultural values - such as loyalty, righteousness and honesty - often derive from the stories his grandparents told him when he was a child.

One of the tales he can still remember is called The Deer of Nine Colors, which is about a fabled multicolored deer that saves a drowning merchant who promises not to tell anyone about its existence. However, the merchant breaks his oath and leads the king's army to hunt down the deer when he is tempted by a reward offered by the king when his concubine demands a coat made of the deer's skin. When the merchant falls into the river once again, he drowns.

The story is inspired by a well-known painting from the ancient murals at the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, Gansu province, and was adapted into a popular Chinese cartoon feature in 1981 by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio and subsequent children's books.

When the National Center for the Performing Arts commissioned the composer to write a music piece, Tan wrote a vocal concerto for soprano and orchestra, titled The Deer of Nine Colors.

Premiered at the NCPA by the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Yannick Nezet-Seguin on Friday, the vocal concerto, performed by Chinese soprano Lei Jia, will be staged at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center on May 26.

The concert on Saturday closed the NCPA May Festival, an annual event started in 2009, which focuses on chamber music. It is also part of the ongoing tour of the Philadelphia Orchestra, which is celebrating 40 years of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and the United States.

"When I wrote the piece, the images of the kindness of the deer and the greedy merchant who betrays his savior were vivid in my head, and the story is still enchanting to me," says the 62-year-old Tan, who was visiting Beijing ahead of the premiere. "When I went to Dunhuang to actually see the painting, I felt like I was traveling back thousands of years."

The vocal concerto, as Tan says, is like a one-act opera that blends a symphony orchestra with Chinese percussion instruments such as drums and gongs and the human voice.

Lei uses her voice to portray different roles, such as the deer of nine colors and its sisters. The musicians of the Philadelphia Orchestra also give vocal performances in the concert.

"The musicians have a musical dialogue in the piece with Lei. It's challenging for her because she has to change her pitch and use different techniques, such as Chinese folk singing and bel canto, to portray different roles," says Tan.

He notes that he has been interested in Chinese folk singing since he was a student at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. Born in Changsha, Hunan province, Tan was among the first students to be admitted to study at the conservatory in 1978, after the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) had ended.

While being classically trained, Tan likes to combine traditional Chinese folk elements with Western composition techniques.

He is no stranger to innovation. He regularly composes for opera, theater and orchestra and often mixes rock and pop with the sounds of primal elements like water, paper and stone.

For his composition of The Deer of Nine Colors, Tan incorporated elements of traditional Chinese opera, such as narration.

"When Tan invited me to perform in his vocal concerto, I anticipated the piece. I watched the cartoon movie of The Deer of Nine Colors as a child, which is a household story in China. He created a great work by turning a visual piece into music," says Lei, 39, who, like Tan, was born and raised in Hunan province.

"He captures the movements of the roles with the sounds of musical instruments, such as the scene of the deer strolling beside the river and the king's army pursuing it," says Lei. "Although it is a Chinese story, the musicians of the Philadelphia Orchestra understand it."

To find inspiration for the vocal concerto, Lei visited Dunhuang and composed her own musical piece, her first composition, after studying the murals there, Lei adds

Tan and Lei rehearsed the work with the orchestra at their base in the US city of Philadelphia. The composer says the process of making the piece was "a journey back to my childhood".

"Now as a father, I tell the same story to my children. I hope this vocal concerto will inspire more people around the world to share a Chinese story, based on mutual understanding, love and compassion," Tan says.