Christopher Tin: Turandot Finale at the Winter Olympics
Music from Christopher Tin’s critically-acclaimed completion of Giacomo Puccini’s final opera Turandot has received an all-star cast recording, released 100 years after the opera’s first performance in Milan. It is heard again in the city and around the world during the 2026 Olympic Games this month, accompanying the free routine by leading men’s figure skater Yuma Kagiyama.
Composer Christopher Tin, widely-beloved for his GRAMMY®-winning video game themes, has created a monumental finale to Turandot which includes a triumphant choral arrangement of Nessun Dorma. The new recording will be heard by millions during the Winter Olympic Games Milano-Cortina 2026 in the men’s figure skating, with the free skate routine by Japanese Olympic medalist Yuma Kagiyama. Tin’s recording is set for release on 6 February 2026 – one week before it will be seen and heard by a global audience of millions at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games. The EP consists of a concert suite as well as his complete 18-minute new ending.
Turandot was famously premiered by Arturo Toscanini as an incomplete opera 100 years ago in Teatro La Scala Milan – April 1926. As shared on Olympics.com, Tin’s completion will be featured in the men’s figure skating finals on February 13, 2026 with a long programme by Japan’s top figure skater Yuma Kagiyama, on the eve of the 100th-anniversary of the premiere of the opera, and in the same city in which it was first performed. The story of Tin’s collaboration with Kagiyama (already a silver medalist in the 2022 Winter Games) and his coaches and choreographers has ignited waves of gratitude in the figure skating world, with NBC Sports commentator Mark Hanretty declaring: “I feel and sense it’s set to be an iconic piece in the history of our sport to come”.
> Watch a video about Christopher Tin's collaboration with Yuma Kagiyama
Tin has assembled an all-star cast for this authoritative recording, conducted by the composer himself at the legendary Abbey Road Studios. GRAMMY®-winning soprano Christine Goerke sings the title role, while Richard Tucker Award-winning heldentenor Clay Hilley sings the role of Calàf. The English National Opera Chorus performs a thunderous version of Nessun Dorma, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, who have played on every orchestral recording of Tin’s, provide the thrilling accompaniment.
Christopher Tin’s music reaches well beyond the traditional classical music world, with fans on every continent, concert videos that regularly go viral, and legions of gamers who discovered his music through the popular Civilization series of video games. Indeed, his first ever choral work Baba Yetu, originally composed as the theme song for Civilization IV, has become a standard of choral repertoire and an iconic piece of video game lore, recognized as the first piece of video game music to win a GRAMMY® Award, single-handedly elevating the artistic legitimacy of the genre of video game scores.
It was his Civilization VI theme Sogno di Volare (The Dream of Flight) in fact, that led to his opera breakthrough. Francesca Zambello, legendary Artistic Director of Washington National Opera, heard his music through her gamer son’s bedroom door. Zambello realized that a composer of video game music had the potential to be an opera composer, and commissioned Tin to complete Turandot, making him only the fourth composer ever (after Franco Alfano, Luciano Berio, and Hao Weiya) to be tasked with the daunting assignment. Set to a libretto by EMMY®-winning playwright Susan Soon He Stanton (best known as the writer/producer of HBO’s Succession), Tin’s completion of Turandot was a critical and commercial success, selling out its entire Kennedy Center run before opening night, and earning rave reviews by the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.
> Watch a score video explaining how Christopher Tin completed Turandot
Christopher Tin’s music for choir and orchestra published by Boosey & Hawkes includes Calling All Dawns (2009), The Drop That Contained the Sea (2014), To Shiver the Sky (2020) and The Lost Birds (2022). The German premiere of The Lost Birds takes place at the Philharmonie in Berlin on 6 June with the Hugo Distler Choir.
> Visit Christopher Tin's website
> Visit Yuma Kagiyama's page on Wikipedia
> Further information on Work: Turandot
Photo: Christopher Tin conducts recording sessions for the Turandot Finale (Meg Redmond)