"As a child, my grandparents told me stories about nature, which made me believe that all the things in the world, such as stones, flowers and land, are living creatures like us."

He says his grandparents once told him that when it rains, the sky is crying.

"When I travel by plane, I love watching the sky from the window. The colors of the sky also amaze me, with the moving clouds and changing daylight. Nature is the best artist," he says.

The Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) Sinfonieorchester and Martin Grubinger, a percussionist from Austria, presented the official world premiere performance of The Tears of Nature on Dec 13, 2012, in Lubeck, Germany, with Tan conducting. In 2015, Grubinger performed the same piece with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Tan in Shanghai.

"I have two goals in my heart. I not only want to establish a musical idea but also want to develop a cross-cultural idea that brings nature and classical music, the ancient and modern, together," Tan adds.