Christopher Tin

It is also one of the most decorated pieces of video game music, holding the distinction of being the first piece of music written for a video game to be both nominated for, and win, a Grammy Award (at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards in the "Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s)" category).

The album won two Grammys in the 53rd Grammy Awards for Best Classical Crossover Album and Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) for the song "Baba Yetu", and was nominated for the 'Contemporary Classical Album' category at the 10th Annual Independent Music Awards.

It features performances by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Lucas Richman), Soweto Gospel Choir, Lia, Aoi Tada, Kaori Omura (大村香織), Jia Ruhan, Dulce Pontes, Anonymous 4, Frederica von Stade, Sussan Deyhim, Stanford Talisman, and On Ensemble.

Despite the fact that Tin had never intended the work to be performed live, many ensembles have performed it.

The first concert was given by Derek Machan and the Waterford Union High School chorus in Waterford, WI.

Christopher Chiyan Tin (born May 21, 1976) is an American composer of art music, often composed for film, television, and video game soundtracks.

His work is primarily orchestral and choral, often with a world music influence.

He won two Grammy Awards for his classical crossover album Calling All Dawns.

He graduated in 1998, receiving a BA with Honors and continued to study at Stanford, receiving an MA in Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities (with an emphasis in film studies) in 1999.

In 1999, Tin was admitted to the Royal College of Music in London for their MMus in Composition for Screen program, and simultaneously received a Fulbright Scholarship, the first to be awarded for film scoring.

There he studied composition with Joseph Horovitz and orchestration with Julian Anderson, as well as conducting with Neil Thomson.

He graduated with Distinction, also winning the Joseph Horovitz composition prize as the top student with the highest overall marks in his course.

He moved to Los Angeles in 2000 and continued to arrange scores for Silva Screen Records to pay his way while searching for more permanent employment.

His first internship was with Hans Zimmer.

Subsequently, he found freelance work with composers Joel McNeely, who hired him to make synthesized mockups of his film scores for a series of Disney films; and John Ottman, who gave him some incidental music to write on X2: X-Men United.

He also worked for record producer Michael Brook, who took him to India on tour as a keyboardist.

In 2003 he participated in the Sundance Institute Film Music Lab where he met jazz pianist Billy Childs, who referred him for his first composing job: scoring a documentary for NY Times Television.

This led to a period of modest success writing music for New York-based documentary filmmakers (notably Oscar-nominee Deborah Dickson) and advertising clients (notably Puma).

Tin's biggest break came in 2005, when video game designer Soren Johnson, his former roommate at Stanford, asked him to compose the theme song for Civilization IV.

Tin responded with "Baba Yetu", a choral, Swahili version of the Lord's Prayer recorded by his former a cappella group Stanford Talisman.

The song garnered a huge critical response, with over 20 reviewers of the game singling out the theme on IGN, GameSpy, and others.

The first live performance of the song took place on September 21, 2006, at the Hollywood Bowl, as part of a Video Games Live concert, featuring Stanford Talisman and conducted by Jack Wall.

Baba Yetu has achieved enormous popularity outside of the video game industry, and been performed at various venues and events around the world, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, The Dubai Fountain, and the New Year's Concert of the sixty-seventh session of the United Nations General Assembly.

Notable ensembles that have performed the song include the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Metropole Orchestra, Welsh National Opera, National Symphony Orchestra, US Navy Band, and various YouTube artists, including Peter Hollens, Alex Boye and the BYU Men's Chorus.

Additionally it won Tin two awards at the GANG (Game Audio Network Guild) Awards in 2006, as well as two awards in the 10th Annual Independent Music Awards ("Best Song Used in Film/TV/Multimedia" and "Best World Beat Song").

It also entered Tin into the Guinness Book of World Records as the composer of the first video game theme to win a Grammy Award.

In 2009, Tin released his classical crossover album Calling All Dawns.

The album is a song-cycle in three uninterrupted movements: Day, Night, and Dawn (corresponding to life, death, and rebirth).

The twelve songs are sung in twelve languages, including Swahili, Polish, French, Persian, and Maori.

The lyrics are taken from diverse sources, including the Torah, the Bhagavad Gita, Persian and Japanese poetry, and lyrics by contemporary writers.

Appropriate vocal traditions are used in the performance of each song, and include African gospel, Beijing opera, medieval chants, and Irish keening.

Tin is perhaps best known for his choral piece Baba Yetu from the video game Civilization IV, which in 2011 became the first piece of video game music to win a Grammy Award.

His Grammy win was considered a significant milestone for the critical acceptance of music from video games, and following his win the Recording Academy retitled their visual media categories to become more inclusive of video game soundtracks, before eventually creating a dedicated Grammy award for 'Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media'.

Tin was raised in Palo Alto, California, by immigrant parents from Hong Kong.

He worked on his undergraduate education at Stanford University with a brief period as an exchange student at the University of Oxford, double majoring in Music Composition and English Literature, and minoring in Art History.

During this period he supplemented his classical studies by participating in various jazz, musical theatre, and world music student groups.

Tin married Dyna Kau in 2013 and they have a daughter together, Penelope Rose, born in 2018.

While a student at the Royal College of Music, he completed his first commission, the string quartet 'Lacrymosa' for the US Embassy in London.

He also found his first professional employment as a staff arranger for Silva Screen Records; his job was to transcribe orchestral film scores (by John Williams, James Horner, John Barry and others) by ear so that they could be re-recorded by live orchestra for album release.

It is also a popular competition piece: in 2014 the Welsh choir Côr CF1 won BBC Radio 3's Choir of the Year with their performance, and in 2018 the Angel City Chorale was awarded the Golden Buzzer by Olivia Munn for their rendition on season 13 of America's Got Talent.