Chou Wen-chung
Encyclopedia
Chou Wen-chung is a Chinese American
composer
of contemporary classical music
. He emigrated in 1946 to the United States where he lives.
in order to pursue music, studying with Nicholas Slonimsky at the New England Conservatory and with Edgard Varèse
and Otto Luening
in New York.
In 1954, he became the first technical assistant at Columbia's Electronic Music Laboratory and was concurrently appointed director of a research Project on Chinese music and drama. This research reinforced his own aesthetic convictions and led him to synthesize theories of calligraphy, qin, single tones and I Ching, all of which represent new ground in his compositional thinking. As chairman of the Music Division at Columbia University
, he was instrumental in providing its composition program with a clear sense of artistic vision. Chou also distinguished himself as vice-dean of the School of the Arts and director of the Fritz Reiner Center for Contemporary Music at Columbia University
. His notable students include Zhou Long
, Chen Yi
, Tan Dun
, Chinary Ung
, Ge Gan-ru, Bright Sheng
, James Tenney
, Jing Jing Luo
, Michael Rosenzweig
, Faye-Ellen Silverman
, and Jacques-Louis Monod
.
. Chou has sought in his music not simply to propagate Varèsian concepts, but to move beyond his teacher's shadow. From Varèse's purely Western tradition, Chou's music evolves from cross-cultural pollination, integrating the East and the West, with the requisite understanding of both cultures. He can be regarded as the founder of the contemporary Chinese musical idiom, one whose music sets the standard and an example for succeeding generations to emulate.
Chou's revolutionary insights brought about a broader and more integrated perception of Chinese music by scholars and laymen East and West. He recognizes the intrinsic contribution of qin music and the singletone concept to Chinese music, and more importantly, he recognizes their value to composers. ("The Twain Meet" by Leighton Kerner.) Also important to his music is the refinement of individual pitches. He believes the West has mastered formal structures, whereas the East remains unexcelled in controlling subtle inflections of tones. By emulating Western achievement in formal design, he employs these nuances not as mere decoration, but as a clear structural element. The art of calligraphy, in its various levels of meaning, serves constantly as the music's philosophical underpinning. A controlled spontaneity and quiet intensity derived from an intimate knowledge of his art and his culture, together with a growth process as organic and inevitable as that of nature, remain requisite stylistic elements. Ultimately, he seeks not so much to amalgamate the divergent Eastern and Western traditions as to internalize and transcend contemporary idioms and techniques to create an intimately personal style that reflects a genuine, modern sensibility. ("Chou Wen-chung" by Nicolas Slonimsky
)
Chou has written for a variety of media. His works have been performed by the orchestras of Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco, Berlin, Paris, and Tokyo. He has received grants from the Rockefeller, Guggenheim and Koussevitsky Foundations, from the National Institute of the Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts. He is the Fritz Reiner
Professor Emeritus of Musical Composition at Columbia University
(where he is also Director of the Center for US-China Arts Exchange), and a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
He was composer-in-residence at Tanglewood, Bennington and the University of Illinois. His posts in music organizations included the presidency of CRI and the chair of the Editorial Board of Asian Music. He is also an honorary life member of Asian Composers League. Other contemporary music organizations with which he is affiliated include League ISCM, the Yaddo Corporation, the American Composers Alliance, the American Music Center, and the American Society of University Composers.
Chinese American
Chinese Americans represent Americans of Chinese descent. Chinese Americans constitute one group of overseas Chinese and also a subgroup of East Asian Americans, which is further a subgroup of Asian Americans...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
of contemporary classical music
Contemporary classical music
Contemporary classical music can be understood as belonging to the period that started in the mid-1970s with the retreat of modernism. However, the term may also be employed in a broader sense to refer to all post-1945 modern musical forms.-Categorization:...
. He emigrated in 1946 to the United States where he lives.
Life
Chou grew up in China and developed an early love for music. ("Sights and Sounds" an essay by Chou on early influences on his music.) Qin music, in particular, has proved fertile for his future exploration. During the Second World War, he was persuaded to study civil engineering to help modernize China. In 1946, he turned down a scholarship in architecture at Yale UniversityYale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
in order to pursue music, studying with Nicholas Slonimsky at the New England Conservatory and with Edgard Varèse
Edgard Varèse
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, , whose name was also spelled Edgar Varèse , was an innovative French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States....
and Otto Luening
Otto Luening
Otto Clarence Luening was a German-American composer and conductor, and an early pioneer of tape music and electronic music....
in New York.
In 1954, he became the first technical assistant at Columbia's Electronic Music Laboratory and was concurrently appointed director of a research Project on Chinese music and drama. This research reinforced his own aesthetic convictions and led him to synthesize theories of calligraphy, qin, single tones and I Ching, all of which represent new ground in his compositional thinking. As chairman of the Music Division at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, he was instrumental in providing its composition program with a clear sense of artistic vision. Chou also distinguished himself as vice-dean of the School of the Arts and director of the Fritz Reiner Center for Contemporary Music at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. His notable students include Zhou Long
Zhou Long
Zhou Long is a Pulitzer-prize-winning Chinese American composer.-Biography:Born into an artistic family, Zhou Long began studying piano from an early age. Due to the artistic restrictions implemented during the Cultural Revolution, he was forced to delay his piano studies and live on a state-run...
, Chen Yi
Chen Yi (composer)
Chen Yi is a Chinese composer of contemporary classical music. She was the first Chinese woman to receive a Master of Arts in music composition from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. She is also a violinist....
, Tan Dun
Tan Dun
Tan Dun is a Chinese contemporary classical composer, most widely known for his scores for the movies Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero.-Early life in China:...
, Chinary Ung
Chinary Ung
Chinary Ung is a composer now living in the United States. After arriving in the United States in 1964 to study the clarinet, Ung studied composition with Chou Wen-chung and Mario Davidovsky. Ung is noted for combining traditional Cambodian musical elements with western instrumentation...
, Ge Gan-ru, Bright Sheng
Bright Sheng
Bright Sheng is a Chinese-American composer, conductor, and pianist. He has lived in the United States since 1982 and is on faculty at the University of Michigan. In 1999, the White House commissioned Sheng to compose a piece to honor the Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji at a state dinner hosted by...
, James Tenney
James Tenney
James Tenney was an American composer and influential music theorist.-Biography:Tenney was born in Silver City, New Mexico, and grew up in Arizona and Colorado. He attended the University of Denver, the Juilliard School of Music, Bennington College and the University of Illinois...
, Jing Jing Luo
Jing Jing Luo
Jing Jing Luo is a female Chinese composer. Born in China, Luo received an undergraduate degree in Shanghai and postgraduate degrees from the New England Conservatory and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Luo's fellowships have come from the Asian Council on the Arts, the New York...
, Michael Rosenzweig
Michael Rosenzweig (composer)
Michael Rosenzweig, born 1951 in Oranjezicht , a district of Cape Town, is a South African composer, conductor and jazz musician.-Education:...
, Faye-Ellen Silverman
Faye-Ellen Silverman
Faye-Ellen Silverman is an American composer of contemporary classical music. She is also an author and an educator.-Life and education:...
, and Jacques-Louis Monod
Jacques-Louis Monod
Jacques-Louis Monod is an influential French-born, American domiciled composer, pianist and conductor of 20th century and contemporary music.-Paris 1940s: early years under Messiaen and Leibowitz:...
.
Career
He is a protégé of the composer and visionary, Edgard VarèseEdgard Varèse
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, , whose name was also spelled Edgar Varèse , was an innovative French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States....
. Chou has sought in his music not simply to propagate Varèsian concepts, but to move beyond his teacher's shadow. From Varèse's purely Western tradition, Chou's music evolves from cross-cultural pollination, integrating the East and the West, with the requisite understanding of both cultures. He can be regarded as the founder of the contemporary Chinese musical idiom, one whose music sets the standard and an example for succeeding generations to emulate.
Chou's revolutionary insights brought about a broader and more integrated perception of Chinese music by scholars and laymen East and West. He recognizes the intrinsic contribution of qin music and the singletone concept to Chinese music, and more importantly, he recognizes their value to composers. ("The Twain Meet" by Leighton Kerner.) Also important to his music is the refinement of individual pitches. He believes the West has mastered formal structures, whereas the East remains unexcelled in controlling subtle inflections of tones. By emulating Western achievement in formal design, he employs these nuances not as mere decoration, but as a clear structural element. The art of calligraphy, in its various levels of meaning, serves constantly as the music's philosophical underpinning. A controlled spontaneity and quiet intensity derived from an intimate knowledge of his art and his culture, together with a growth process as organic and inevitable as that of nature, remain requisite stylistic elements. Ultimately, he seeks not so much to amalgamate the divergent Eastern and Western traditions as to internalize and transcend contemporary idioms and techniques to create an intimately personal style that reflects a genuine, modern sensibility. ("Chou Wen-chung" by Nicolas Slonimsky
Nicolas Slonimsky
Nicolas Slonimsky was a Russian born American composer, conductor, musician, music critic, lexicographer and author. He described himself as a "diaskeuast" ; "a reviser or interpolator."- Life :...
)
Chou has written for a variety of media. His works have been performed by the orchestras of Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco, Berlin, Paris, and Tokyo. He has received grants from the Rockefeller, Guggenheim and Koussevitsky Foundations, from the National Institute of the Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts. He is the Fritz Reiner
Fritz Reiner
Frederick Martin “Fritz” Reiner was a prominent conductor of opera and symphonic music in the twentieth century.-Biography:...
Professor Emeritus of Musical Composition at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
(where he is also Director of the Center for US-China Arts Exchange), and a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
He was composer-in-residence at Tanglewood, Bennington and the University of Illinois. His posts in music organizations included the presidency of CRI and the chair of the Editorial Board of Asian Music. He is also an honorary life member of Asian Composers League. Other contemporary music organizations with which he is affiliated include League ISCM, the Yaddo Corporation, the American Composers Alliance, the American Music Center, and the American Society of University Composers.
Sources
- Chou Wen-Chung: the life and work of a contemporary Chinese-born American composer, Rowman & Littlefield, 2006, ISBN 9780810852969
External links
- Chou Wen-chung official site
- Chou Wen-chung interview by Bruce Duffie, 1995
- "An interview with Chou Wen Chung", Preston Wright, American Public Media, with Philip Blackburn, American Composers Forum, July 2002
- Chou Wen-Chung video interview by Thomas Crampton 2007
- Art of the States: Chou Wen-chung three works by the composer