(b Chefoo, Yantai, 29 July 1923). Chinese composer, scholar and teacher, active in the USA. He had already completed his studies as a civil engineer when he arrived in the USA to study architecture at Yale University. After one week, however, he changed his plans and enrolled at the New England Conservatory, where he studied with Carl McKinley, Nicolas Slonimsky and others. In 1949 he moved to New York, and began to conduct research into traditional Chinese music. During this period, he took private composition lessons from Martinů (1949) and Varèse (1949–54), and completed the MA (1954) at Columbia University. Between 1955 and 1957 he directed a research programme at Columbia on classical Chinese music and drama. Entrusted with Varèse’s music shortly before his death, he completed Nocturnal and Tuning Up, based on Varèse's sketches, and prepared several new editions of Varèse’s works.
A professor at Columbia from 1964, Chou, who became a naturalized American citizen, founded the Fritz Reiner Center for Contemporary Music (1984) and was appointed its first chair (1984–91). He served extensively in the capacity of academic dean at Columbia’s School of the Arts, designed and developed curriculum for the doctoral programme in composition, and was mentor to many young composers. He was also president of CRI (1970–75) and founder of the Center for US-China Arts Exchange (1978), which later extended its scope from arts education to conservancy of Asian folk cultures. His writings cover a wide range of topics, including philosophies of contemporary music, Varèse’s music and Chinese historiography. Among his honours are the Rockefeller Award (1992), the University of Cincinnati Award for Excellence (1996), membership in the American Institute and Academy of Arts and Letters, honorary membership in the ISCM, and numerous commissions and fellowships.
Chou’s first orchestral work, Landscapes (1949), is an exploration in timbre. Based on traditional Chinese melodic patterns, the work alludes to the immaculate proportions of Chinese landscape painting. The Suite for Harp and Wind Quintet (1951), based on five Chinese melodic patterns, synthesizes his philosophy on the merging of East and West, a perspective confirmed in two later works, All in the Spring Wind (1952–3) and And the Fallen Petals (1954). Also characteristic are titles inspired by poetry or calligraphy. The Willows are New (1957), after Wang Wei’s poem Yang Kuan, treats the piano as a metamorphosis of the qin (Chinese zither). Cursive for flute and piano (1963) translates the expressivity of cursive script into music by projecting ‘not only fluid lines in interaction but also density, texture and poise’.
Chou's works from the 1960s onwards are inspired by the wenren aesthetic of a harmonious communion of humanity and nature. In Yü Ko (‘Song of the Fisherman’, 1965), qin articulations and pitch inflections are adapted to Western instruments. Texture, colour and varied techniques of sound production became the essence of the counterpoint. Pien (‘Transformation’, 1966–7) is a virtuoso chamber concerto, employing ‘variable modes’ based on the I Ching; Yün (1969) translates the reverberations of nature into music, depicting the harmonious merging of the universe and humankind, and achieving balance not only in a Western structural conception, but also in the yin–yang duality of sound and silence.
After a hiatus from composing (1969–86), during which time he concentrated on teaching and administrative duties, Chou wrote Echoes from the Gorge (1989), a work that continues along much the same path as Pien and Yün. Scored for percussion quartet, Echoes is an intricate contrapuntal interplay of register, timbre, articulation, duration, rhythmic modal permutation, ascending-descending relationships, advancing-receding relationships and nature imagery. Windswept Peaks (1990), composed during the democracy movement that culminated in Tiananmen Square, is dedicated to persecuted Chinese intellectuals, who ‘stand tall among the mightiest peaks in the history of humanity’. The Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra (1992) synthesizes the Western concerto genre and a central aesthetic of Chinese art, the interaction between the individual and the environment. The String Quartet ‘Clouds’ (1996) is based on a constant transformation of ‘variable modes’, reflecting the natural fluctuation of cloud formations.
(selective list)
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Orch: Landscapes, 1949; All in the Spring Wind, 1952–3; And the Fallen Petals, 1954; In the Mode of Shang, 1956; Metaphors, wind ens, 1960–61; Riding the Wind, wind ens, 1964; Pien [Transformation], chbr conc., pf, wind, perc, 1966–7; Vc Conc., 1992 |
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Vocal: 7 Poems of the T’ang Dynasty, S/T, ens, 1951; Poems of White Stone, chorus, ens, 1958–9, unpubd |
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Chbr and solo inst: 2 Chinese Folksongs, hp, 1950; 3 Folksongs, fl, hp, 1950; Suite, wind qnt, hp, 1951; 2 Miniatures from the T'ang Dynasty, 10 insts, 1957, unpubd; Valediction, kbd, 1957, unpubd; The Willows are New, pf, 1957; Soliloquy of a Bhiksuni, tpt, brass, perc, 1958; To a Wayfarer, cl, hp, perc, str, 1958; Cursive, fl, pf, 1963; The Dark and the Light, vn, va, vc, db, pf, perc, 1964, unpubd; Yü Ko [Song of the Fisherman], 9 insts, 1965; Ceremonial, 3 tpt, 3 trbn, 1968, unpubd; Yün, wind sextet, pf, 2 perc, 1969; Beijing in the Mist, 10 insts, 1986; Echoes from the Gorge, perc qt, 1989; Windswept Peaks, vn, cl, vc, pf, 1990; Clouds, str qt, 1996 |
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5 documentary film scores, 1960–66 |
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Edns (all works by E. Varèse): Nocturnal (New York, 1973); Amériques (New York, 1974) [orig. 1922 version (New York, 1996)]; Integrales (New York, 1980); Octandre (New York, 1980); Dance for Burgess (New York, 1998); Tuning Up (New York, 1998) |
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Principal publisher: Peters |
N. Slonimsky: ‘Chou Wen-Chung’, American Composers Alliance Bulletin, ix/4 (1961), 2–9
R. Kyr: ‘“Searching for the Essential” and “Between the Mind and the Ear: Finding the Perfect Balance”’, League of Composers – ISCM: Boston 1990, 11–28 [interview]
S.-K. Chew: Analysis of the Selected Music of Chou Wen-chung in Relation to Chinese Aesthetics (diss., New York U., 1990)
P. Chang: Chou Wen-chung and his Music: a Musical and Biographical Profile of Cultural Synthesis (diss., U. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1995)
E. Lai: A Theory of Pitch Organization in the Early Music of Chou Wen-chung (diss., Indiana U., 1995)
K. Kwan: Compositional Design in Recent Works by Chou Wen-chung (diss., SUNY, Buffalo, 1996)
JOANNA C. LEE