BABA YETU

from the video game 'Civilization IV'

 

Christopher's best known piece is also one of the most critically acclaimed, universally popular video game themes ever, winning the first Grammy award ever awarded to a piece of video game music. The Washington Post called it "sophisticated", Time Magazine called it "anthemic", while The Guardian called it "an intelligent meeting of melody and theme".

 

As a standard of the contemporary choral repertoire, Baba Yetu is also one of the only pieces of video game music to transcend its genre into mainstream popularity. It's been performed everywhere from community choirs to Carnegie Hall. It's gone from being just a video game song to the soundtrack for everything from Premier League Football to The Vatican. It's been played at weddings, funerals, and even the signing of a historic peace treaty in Mozambique. It's regularly performed at the United Nations. Dancers have danced to it, acrobatic troupes have performed routines to it, skaters have won competitions with it. It's been performed twice on America's Got Talent. It was even a question on Jeopardy!

 

Baba Yetu has proved itself an enduring classic; with its truly global reach, it's still as enormously popular today as it was when it debuted in 2005.

 

Christopher Tin conducts "Baba Yetu" at the 70th Annual Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod

 

Angel City Chorale wins the Golden Buzzer on America's Got Talent

 

SOGNO DI VOLARE

from the video game 'Civilization VI'

 

Christopher returned to the Civilization series with "Sogno di Volare", his theme song to ''Civilization VI'--a setting of Leonardo da Vinci's writings on flight that PC Gamer called "powerful, uplifting". The song earned him two GANG Award nominations, as well as a NAVGTR nomination for 'Best Theme Song'.

 

The piece also gave Christopher the rare chance to bridge his classical and media composing careers. The world premiere was given at Cadogan Hall, London, by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, sung by the combined Angel City Chorale, Prima Vocal Ensemble, and Lucis choirs, conducted by the composer himself.

 

In March 2018, he announced that he would be turning the piece into a full oratorio about the history of flight, called 'To Shiver the Sky'. He launched a Kickstarter campaign to finance the recording, and the public response was overwhelming, raising a staggering $221,415, and shattering the record for the most highly-funded classical music crowdfunding campaign ever.The album was released in 2020.

 

WALOYO YAMONI

from 'The Drop That Contained the Sea'

 

"Waloyo Yamoni (We Overcome the Wind)" is the grand finale to Christopher's second album 'The Drop That Contained the Sea'. The lyrics are a setting of a Lango rainmaking prayer. It was commissioned by the St. Matthews Chamber Orchestra, and recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with the Soweto Gospel Choir.

 

The piece has been particularly popular performed live. New York Concert Review wrote of the Carnegie Hall premiere "The audience reacted after the final notes with the loudest and longest standing ovation I have ever heard at any concert", while The York Press wrote "We Overcome The Wind was an outpouring of joy; a unanimous standing ovation evinced the sense of togetherness at the heart of this concert." Similarly, the video of the European premiere at Cadogan Hall has become an online favorite, going viral on both TikTok and Instagram.

 

MADO KARA MIERU

from 'Calling All Dawns'

 

On first listen "Mado Kara Mieru" sounds like an anime soundtrack, but it's actually a standalone concert work imbued with an inordinate amount of structure and meaning. Sung in Japanese, each verse is a different haiku, written about a different season: spring, summer, autumn, winter, and finally returning to spring. Each verse is similarly sung by a different singer in a different phase of life: a young girl, a young woman, an old woman, and a chorus of old men on the verge of death--after which the voice of the young girl returns at the end. The song therefore is a representation of the cycle of life as reflected through the seasons, making it a microcosm of the larger song cycle 'Calling All Dawns'.

 

"Mado Kara Mieru" also became a hit in the unlikeliest of places: the hip-hop and EDM scene. Indeed, over the years Christopher's beguiling melody, sung by a young Japanese girl, found its way into rap songs (like "Careless World" and "Mystic" by Tyga) and trance anthems ("Chopstick" by German techno band Scooter).

 

In recent years Christopher's music has gained popularity in the figure skating community. A number of skaters across Canada and Asia have been competing (and winning) with routines set to his music, many of them choreographed by legendary figure skater Lori Nichol. Mao Shimada, one of Japan's bright young skating stars, has been medaling with a free skate routine set to "Mado Kara Mieru".

 

Tyga's "Careless World"

 

Scooter's "Chopstick"

 

Mao Shimada's Free Skate

 

FLOCKS A MILE WIDE

from 'The Lost Birds'

 

"Flocks a Mile Wide" is the overture to Christopher's fourth album The Lost Birds, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and described as "musical poetry of a high order" by Textura. Prior to release as part of the album, the piece was given its world premiere on April 3rd, 2016 at the Lincoln Center, conducted by Jonathan Griffith with the DCINY Orchestra, in a concert celebrating Christopher's 40th-birthday. New York Concert Review wrote "Flocks a Mile Wide is filled with poignant lyricism. I have mentioned before that Mr. Tin is highly gifted as a melodist, so this comes as no surprise at all."

 

In recent years, The Lost Birds has been a fixture on the ClassicFM Hall of Fame--an online voting contest where listeners to the popular classical radio station vote for their favorite pieces of music.

 

The piece was originally composed as the score for the Deborah Dickson film 'The Lost Bird Project', a documentary following the sculptor Todd McGrain as he creates five large sculptures as memorials for extinct bird species.

 

On a more personal note, "Flocks a Mile Wide" was the piece that Christopher's wife walked down the aisle to at their wedding.

 

TURANDOT

a new completion of Giacomo Puccini's final opera

 

Christopher's most daunting musical challenge came in the form of his first opera commission: a daring new ending to Giacomo Puccini's final masterpiece 'Turandot', which was left unfinished at the time of his death. Washington National Opera commissioned him, alongside librettist Susan Soon He Stanton (widely known as a writer/producer on the HBO show Succession), to craft a new ending that solved the puzzle of how to solve the riddle of the opera's ending; a challenge that had stumped composers for almost a century.

 

Christopher came up with a musical language that wove together his own compositional style with both Puccini's leftover sketches, as well as strategic reprises of many of the main themes from the completed portion of the opera. The result was both a commercial and critical hit: the entire run sold out before opening night, and was widely praised by critics. The Wall Street Journal declared that 'Its sound and attitude, while contemporary, grow organically from Puccini's original, like a savvy modern addition on a historic building.' The Washington Post proclaimed 'Even without the new ending--and Tin's splendid musical additions, which draw sensibly from Puccini's score while applying an entirely new emotional finish--Zambello's "Turandot" crackles with fresh energy and some truly extraordinary singing.'

 

To help promote the new ending, the Kennedy Center organized a groundbreaking event prior to opening night, called the 'Christopher Tin Sing In'. Working together with the Washington Metropolitan Gamer Symphony Orchestra and soloists Colleen Daly and Carl Tanner, Washington National Opera invited the greater Washington DC public to join a singalong of his two most famous video game themes ("Baba Yetu" and "Sogno di Volare") at the Kennedy Center, as well as to learn his new choral finale to Turandot. The resulting 'performance' went viral on social media.

 

WAITING FOR YOUR RETURN

from the motion picture 'Crazy Rich Asians'

 

Christopher was hired by Warner Brothers Pictures and director Jon M. Chu to transform the classic 1930s Chinese melody 'He Ri Jun Zai Lai' into a sizzling, old-school Hollywood opener for the one of the most talked-about films of 2018, 'Crazy Rich Asians'.

 

Sung by Jasmine Chen, Christopher's big band and string orchestra arrangement dazzled film reviewers, who singled it out as one of the highlights of the film. From The Atlantic: "I didn't make it past the opening credits without bursting into spontaneous tears." The Globe and Mail wrote: "The Mandarin opener by Jasmine Chen set the tone for me, a salvo that made clear the producers had thought through the emotional weight of the film right down to the details." And two editors of Wired agreed: "Waiting for Your Return" is a Chinese jazz classic, delivered with renewed verve and glamour... It's a thrilling opening for a thoughtfully curated soundtrack."

TEMEN OBLAK

from 'The Drop That Contained the Sea'

 

Christopher's collaboration with the GRAMMY-winning world music ensemble Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares featured all the hallmarks of post-war Bulgarian folk-song: unorthodox meter, tone clusters, unusual ornamentation and as strident singing style. Its otherworldly sound made for a thrilling piece for choirs to sing, but the sheer physicality of the piece also caught the attention of Japanese figure skater Yoshida Hana, who's been winning world championships with a short program choreographed to his piece.

 

Meanwhile in America, "Temen Oblak" also caught the ears of Carolina Crown, as they competed in the 2019 Drum Corps World Championship Final with a medley that opened with his Bulgarian-folk-themed piece.

 

 

 

I LIFT MY EYES

from the video game 'Old World'

 

Christopher's score to Mohawk Games' Old World was spearheaded by a powerhouse collaboration with fellow Universal Music Group artist Abeer Nehme, a star in the Middle East with an extraordinary voice. Backed up by his longtime friends and collaborators, the Angel City Chorale, the Old World soundtrack caught the ears of the Recording Academy, who honored it with a GRAMMY-nomination--one of two he received that year (the other for his collaboration with VOCES8, The Lost Birds).

KIA HORA TE MARINO

from 'Calling All Dawns'

 

"Kia Hora Te Marino" is the finale to Christopher's Grammy-winning debut album 'Calling All Dawns'. The lyrics are a setting of a well-known Maori blessing: "May peace be widespread, may the sea glisten like greenstone, and may the shimmer of light guide you on your way.

 

The piece also illustrates the great lengths that Christopher sometimes goes to for cultural authenticity. After researching their music and texts, he attended a Maori community meeting in London, where he was given the opportunity to participate in some of their cultural traditions. It was there he met Maori multi-instrumentalist Jerome Kavanagh, who quickly became one of his collaborators. Jerome performed the whaikorero (the oration featured in the bridge of the piece), and brought several other members of the Maori community to Abbey Road, where they recorded the haka.