The composer Tan Dun has a reputation for bringing together disparate forms and cultures in his works — most notably the traditions of Eastern and Western music. With his new work The Map, a "Concerto for Cello, Video, and Orchestra," the range of those syntheses extends even further.

When the BSO commissioned a work from Tan for the orchestra and the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, he decided to revisit the traditional music of the Hunan province of China, where he grew up. "I decided that I should do something about the musical traditions of my childhood," he says on the phone from New York, where he has lived since his days as a graduate student at Columbia. "So many of those traditions, in every corner of the globe, are disappearing. But meanwhile, we have such great technology, so I thought that we should do something more creative to save these traditions." Thus The Map is on one level a fusion of past and present.

Tan returned to Hunan in 1999 and began an arduous search for evidence of the musical customs he remembered from childhood, capturing them on video. "I decided to use the footage and the music to create a kind of double concerto," he says. "In that way, I wasn’t just shooting a collection to be put in a library, but also using it as a creative resource for a new piece." So the piece also represents an ambitious synthesis of different media, synchronizing Tan’s music with video images from his research. It’s a double concerto in that the video literally becomes a second soloist, in counterpoint with Ma’s cello.

In fact, the whole idea of counterpoint clearly fascinates Tan, and is behind his interest in the concerto form as a whole. "The concerto is an art of counterpoint — between solo and orchestra, between harmony and melody, between line and point," he says. "But in every era, counterpoint assumes a different meaning, one that embraces both video and audio forms. And that meaning must always reflect the lifestyle of the present."

Works with so many layers of counterpoint seem to come naturally to Tan. "Everything I do comes out of my life experience," he says. "We are living at a time in which we experience everything in a multisensory way. Music presentation and appreciation embrace all the senses. So even without visualization, my music is full of color. It’s influenced by my experience of different senses."

The actual construction of the piece was, unsurprisingly, something of a logistical nightmare. Video material had to be organized and selected with both content and pacing in mind. All the music materials, including ancient music and sound elements, had to be painstakingly notated. "And then you have to find a way to compose, both visually and sound-wise. There were many, many issues," he says in a vast understatement. Little wonder that the work’s premiere was delayed twice.

Tan carefully chose other works for the program to help put his own music in context. Shostakovich’s Overture on Russian and Khirgiz Folk Themes was selected for its use of native folk music, while John Cage’s ballet score The Seasons and Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes were chosen for their different ways of representing nature. "Cage’s score has such a transparent air, you get the scent of the air, the grass, the water," Tan says. "Britten’s nature is much more powerful, more dramatic — you sense its sheer power."

Toward the end of our conversation, I hear a bird singing quietly in the background. It makes for a nice counterpoint.

Tan Dun’s The Map receives its world premiere performances at Symphony Hall, on February 20, 21, 22, and 25, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $25 to $84. Call (617) 266-1200. In addition, the BSO’s "Online Conservatory," at www.bso.org, will devote an interactive feature to the work.

IVORY FANTASIES: The playing of pianist Richard Goode is both expressive and intelligent, in the Apollonian vein of his teacher, Rudolf Serkin. He tends to stick to the classics of the Austro-German repertoire, but his Jordan Hall program includes some curveballs, including a few Debussy Préludes and a pavane or two from (gasp!) William Byrd. Works by Beethoven, Mozart, and Chopin fill out the February 23 program. It’s a 3 p.m. show, courtesy of the FleetBoston Celebrity Series. Tickets go from $40 to $50, and you can get ’em at (617) 482-6661. The Irish pianist John O’Conor is the soloist with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra in Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto, one of his most subtly brilliant works. Works by Britten and Shostakovich (the blazing Tenth Symphony) round out the program, conducted by Benjamin Zander. Concerts are February 20 at 7:30 and February 23 at 3 p.m. at Sanders Theatre, and February 22 at 8 p.m. at Jordan Hall. Tickets range from $17 to 60; call (617) 236-0999.