Prize-fighters and at least one famous conductor of the Metropolitan Opera are fond of their towels. After all, how can you see where to deliver a right jab or cue the trombones when there’s all this sweat running down your face?

The Chinese composer Tan Dun thoughtfully threw in the towel as part of the equipment required for performances of his Concerto for Water Percussion and Orchestra. The towel is there so the percussionist can dry his or her hands—because the instruments required to perform Tan’s concerto include two large basins of water, a soda bottle, a sieve, a water shaker, and various types of water drums and gongs.

This Concerto was a Millennium Commission from the New York Philharmonic, whose percussionist Christopher Lamb gave the premiere performance with the Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall in New York on today’s date in 1999. Tan dedicated his score to the memory of Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu, who died in 1996. Like Takemitsu, Tan’s music uses Eastern and Western techniques and sensibilities to create a new synthesis of sounds.

As a young man in China, Tan Dun conducted a village musical ensemble, and for a time acted as a string player and arranger for a provincial Peking opera troupe. In 1978, he studied at the Central Conservatory in Beijing, and in the 1980s came to New York for further study at Columbia University. His music began to attract worldwide attention during the 1990s, and his score for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” won an Academy Award in 2000.