International Awards
Silver Award, 2023 International Classical Music Composition Competition
The only child composer in the history of the competition to receive an award

Carey Tan’s Symphony No. 1, Four Seasons in Summer Fields, is his first symphonic work, completed when he was eight years old. Inspired by his school life at Summer Fields School in Oxford, the work depicts the school’s beautiful scenery, rich daily life, and the occasional homesickness Carey experienced as a young boarding pupil.

Summer Fields School is a boarding preparatory school in Oxford, England, with a history of 160 years. For Carey, it was not only a school, but also a world full of vitality, imagination, and musical colour. The changing seasons, friendships, musical activities, and emotions of boarding-school life all became sources of inspiration, giving the work a sincere and autobiographical quality.

The work begins in autumn, with gentle and reflective music suggesting fallen leaves, the start of term, and the unease of a young child entering boarding life alone. It then passes through a brief winter, hinting at loneliness and longing. With the arrival of spring, the music turns towards brightness and vitality, portraying nature reviving on campus and renewed hope in daily learning. Finally, the work ends in the heat and brilliance of summer. The changing seasons become not only a depiction of nature, but also the emotional journey of a young boarding pupil.

In 2024, Carey performed this work with the Shenwan Orchestra at the Guangming Culture & Art Center in Shenzhen. As his first symphony, Four Seasons in Summer Fields reveals the starting point of his early musical imagination: a bright and sincere symphonic picture of school life, childhood memory, and homesickness.