about the composer

The music of Chinese-American composer and teacher Chou Wen-chung (b. 1923) fuses traditional Chinese elements with Western musical techniques. He has written of his aesthetic:

"One must search beyond the procedures of a musical practice, discern its original aesthetic commitments, and trace how its tradition has evolved. If one is blessed with a cross-cultural heritage, one must then regard it as a privilege and obligation to commit the search in both practices."

Chou was born in Yantai, Shantung Province, China, and came to the United States in 1946 to study architecture at Yale University. Shortly thereafter he enrolled at the New England Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts, and studied music with Carl McKinley and Nicolas Slonimsky. Upon relocating to New York in 1949, he became Edgard Varèse's apprentice, assisting with music editing in exchange for composition lessons. Chou became the executor of Varèse's musical estate, preparing new editions of his music, reconstructing works based on sketches, and completing the unfinished work Nocturnal (1961/1973).

Between 1952-1954 Chou did his graduate work at Columbia University in New York City under composer Otto Luening, also serving as assistant to Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky at the newly-created Electronic Music Center. He joined the faculty of Columbia in 1964 and later founded the Center for United States-China Arts Exchange (1978) and Fritz Reiner Center for Contemporary Music (1984), both of which he directed for many years. Chou's work at Columbia led to the creation of the first courses of Chinese and Asian music in the US, and provided the opportunity for many Chinese composers to study and work in the United States. He retired from Columbia in 1991.

From 1971 to 1975 Chou served as president of the record label CRI (Composers Recordings, Inc); his music is recorded on the Albany, CRI, Crystal, Telarc, and New World labels, and has been performed by orchestras and ensembles in the US, Europe, Japan, and China. Two retrospective concerts of his work were held in New York City in 1989 and 1993. He has received grants from the Guggenheim, Koussevitzky, and Rockefeller Foundations, the Cincinnati Award for Excellence, and the Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the government of France.