Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Chou Wen-Chung
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1923-
History
Chou Wen-Chung was born in Yantai, China in 1923 and immigrated to the United States in 1946. In 1949, he was introduced to Edgard Varèse and became his student and assistant during the last years of Varèse's life. Chou completed his graduate work in composition at Columbia University under Otto Luening (1952-1954) and later taught at the university (1964-1991), becoming the head of the composition program in 1969. He established the Fritz Reiner Center for Contemporary Music at Columbia in 1984 and converted Columbia's Electronic Music Center to the Computer Music Center. He also established ties between Columbia University and East and Southeast Asia with the United States-China Arts Exchange, which enabled various programs, including the Pacific Music Festival and the Pacific Composers Conference in Sapporo, Japan.