If you’re in New York City this week, here’s a can’t-miss event: One of the major shapers of the contemporary music scene as we know it in America is the still-too-little known Chinese American composer, teacher and scholar CHOU Wen-chong. Miller Theatre will present a special concert on 21 March by Continuum Ensemble to honor his centennial. He was actually born in 1923, but events have been scheduled throughout the 2023-24 season to celebrate his legacy.
Chou moved to the US in his 20s to study and became an important figure in the American avant-garde musical scene. He spent much of his career pioneering a new synthesis of classical Chinese aesthetics with a Western contemporary sensibility. As a charismatic teacher based at Columbia, he was responsible for bringing the big players of the next generation over from China at the end of Mao’s Cultural Revolution to the US — composers including Tan Dun, Chen Yi, Bright Sheng and Zhou Long — and has been dubbed (by Tan Dun) “the godfather of Chinese contemporary music.”
The Miller Theatre concert will be led by Joel Sachs, a longstanding figure at Juilliard who retired from his post there last year. This event will consider Chou’s legacy in cultural interchange and blending Eastern and Western styles — how he helped pave the way toward a more-inclusive aesthetic in today’s classical sphere.
Filed under: music news
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 