UC San Diego is honoring the legacy of composer and cultural ambassador Chou Wen-chung with two special events in February.

On Wednesday, February 18, 2026, percussionist Steven Schick’s red fish blue fish performs this year’s Chou Commission Concert, featuring newly commissioned pieces by UCSD graduate students Jiyoung Ko and Myles Ortiz-Green. Then, on February 20, the 21st Century China Center at the UCSD School of Global Policy and Strategy presents the Chou Wen-chung Distinguished Lecture on Chinese Culture, “Rediscover Chinatown: Performing Arts, Identity and the Making of Community,” a dialogue between David Lei and Nancy Yunhwa Rao.

The Chou Commission Concert is a celebration of Chou’s musical legacy, as preserved by Schick and Lei Liang. Upon Chou Wen-chung’s passing in 2019, Liang—a composer and now-former Spiralis Trust board member, as well as Schick’s colleague at UC San Diego—joined Schick in bringing the Chou’s collection of percussion instruments to UCSD, including instruments that belonged to Chou’s own teacher, Edgard Varèse. Each year, according to the terms of the Chou Commission, a graduate student of the university is asked to compose a new work for or inspired by the instruments in that collection.

This year’s Commission Concert features new works by Commission recipients Ko (A Ray of Light Through the Crack) and Ortiz-Green, as well as the US premiere of Caminar by UCSD professor Wilfrido Terrazas and Gabriela Ortiz’s 2014 work Liquid Borders. Tickets for the performance, 7pm at the Conrad Prebys Music Center Experimental Theater, can be found at the UCSD website.

The Chou Wen-chung Distinguished Lecture on Chinese Culture commemorates the other side of Chou’s accomplishments: his diplomatic work, bringing together Chinese and American cultures. This year’s lecture will be a conversation between community leader David Lei, who will discuss the role Chinatown’s arts community has played in Chinese-American culture, and Rutgers professor Nancy Yunhwa Rao, who will explore the history of Chinese opera theaters in North America. In-person and virtual tickets are available at this link.