Chou Wen-Chung Centennial Concert
$20 ($10 student/senior) + fees
- Joel Sachs, conductor & piano
- Renée Jolles, violin
- Stephanie Griffin, viola
- Kristina Reiko Cooper, cello
- Emily Duncan, flute (Continuum debut)
- Moran Katz, clarinet
Chou Wen-chung — The Willows are New (1957)
Chou Wen-chung — Yü Ko (1965)
Chou Wen-chung — Twilight Colors (2007)
Chou Wen-chung — Ode to Eternal Pine (2009)
This centennial event celebrates the life of pioneering composer Chou Wen-chung: the first Chinese-born American composer to achieve international acclaim. His unique style – subtly expressive and yet always of the moment – brought together Chinese traditional music and Western modernism in a reciprocal symbiosis.
Chou taught for decades at Columbia University, heading its composition program. His Center for US-China Arts Exchange brought young Chinese composers to the United States for graduate study in the 1980s, in the febrile times that followed Mao’s death.
A short, informal conversation between Chou's sons and musical associates will follow the intermission.
Chou (1923 - 2019) came to the United States in 1946. He studied with Nicholas Slonimsky at the New England Conservatory of Music, and later moved to New York City where Edgard Varèse became his teacher and mentor. In the early 1950s, he did graduate work at Columbia University under Otto Luening, and studied with Bohuslav Martinů and musicologist Paul Henry Lang. This began a long career (1964 - 1991) at Columbia, where he developed an internationally renowned composition program and, for 13 years, was in charge of academic affairs for all the creative arts.
In 1978, Chou founded the Center for United States-China Arts Exchange, which has collaborated with specialists and institutions from East/Southeast Asia on projects such as the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan (1990); an arts education program in China spanning 15 years; and an ongoing project, begun in 1990, for cultural conservation and development in Yunnan, one of the most culturally diverse regions in the world.
Chou was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an honorary member of the International Society for Contemporary Music and Asian Composers League, and recipient of the Officier des Arts et Lettres.
Sponsored by Spiralis Music Trust in cooperation with Columbia University Department of Music.
About Continuum
Winner of the Siemens international prize and four ASCAP awards for Adventuresome Programming, New-York-based Continuum has been a major presence in the new music world since it was founded in 1966.
Continuum has performed across the United States, including at the Kennedy Center and the Library of Congress; toured Europe dozens of times, and made numerous trips to Asia and Latin America.
CBS-TV, National Public Radio, the Voice of America, and European networks have broadcast Continuum events. The ensemble has recorded nearly two dozen titles and in 2024 records music by Roberto Sierra and Ursula Mamlok. Its concert programs embrace the entire range of music from 20th-century classics such as Ives, Joplin, and Webern, to today's composers from all over the world.
https://www.continuum-ensemble-ny.org/index.htmlAbout Renée Jolles, violin
Violinist Renée Jolles enjoys an eclectic career as soloist and chamber artist specializing in a wide variety of styles from the Baroque to the contemporary.
Hailed as a “real star” by The New York Times for her New York concerto debut in Alice Tully Hall, she has premiered hundreds of works, including the American premiere of Schnittke’s Violin Concerto No. 2.
Ms. Jolles is a member of the Jolles Duo (harp and violin), Continuum, Intimate Voices, the Bedford Chamber Players (with Baroque harpsichordist Anthony Newman), the New York Chamber Ensemble, and is a concertmaster of the world-renowned, Grammy Award-winning, conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Committed to recording new music, she can be heard as soloist and chamber artist on the Deutsche Grammaphon, Cambria, CRI, North/South Recordings, Albany, and New World labels.
In 2014, Ms. Jolles inaugurated The Eastman School of Music’s celebrated annual Holocaust Remembrance Concert series featuring faculty performances of neglected masterworks by composers who perished or survived during this time, and modern works based on Holocaust themes.
https://www.esm.rochester.edu/directory/jolles-renee/About Stephanie Griffin, viola
Stephanie Griffin is an innovative violist and composer with an eclectic musical vision. Born in Canada and based in New York City, her musical adventures have taken her to Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, England, Ireland, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, and Mongolia. Stephanie founded the Momenta Quartet in 2004, and is a member of the Argento Chamber Ensemble and Continuum; principal violist of the Princeton Symphony; and viola faculty at Hunter College. She was a 2019 Composition Fellow at the Instituto Sacatar in Brazil, and has received prestigious composition fellowships and commissions from the Jerome Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts and the Bronx Council on the Arts. As an improviser she has performed with Henry Threadgill, Wadada Leo Smith, Butch Morris and Adam Rudolph, among others, and was a 2014 Fellow and 2021 Alumna-in-Residence at Music Omi. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The Juilliard School where she studied with Samuel Rhodes, and has recorded for Tzadik, Innova, Naxos, Aeon, New World and Albany records. Since August 2020, she has served as the Executive Director of ACMP, a nonprofit organization providing grants and services for amateur chamber music worldwide.
https://www.stephaniegriffinviola.com/About Kristina Reiko Cooper, cello
Cello virtuoso Kristina Reiko Cooper has won worldwide acclaim for her musical diversity, artistry, and charismatic stage presence. Hailed by The New York Times as "sensational in concert" and as a "striking virtuoso" by the Los Angeles Times, Kristina has performed as a soloist and chamber musician on many of the world's most distinguished stages including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, Suntory Hall of Tokyo, Radio France in Paris, and appearances with the Prague Chamber Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony, and the Tokyo Yomiuri Symphony.
http://kristinareikocooper.com/home/