Timeline

Graduated from Harvard Univesity with a degree in sociology

1979

First Introduction to theatrical works with a score he wrote for Genny Lim

1986

Wrote “Journey Beyond West Orchestra: The New Adventure of Monkey”

1989

1957

Born as Hou Weihan in 1957 to Chinese immigrant parents in Palo Alto California

1982

Formed the Six Member Afro Asian Music Ensemble

1988

First Asian American to win the Duke Ellington Distinguished Artist Lifetime Achievement Award

Was awarded the prestigious American Book Award for the anthology Sounding Off: Music as Subversion/ Resistance/Revolution

1996

Wrote about W.E.B. Du Bois’s relationships with Asian leaders in his edited anthology Afro Asia: Revolutionary Political and Cultural Connections between African Americans and Asian Americans Won Guggenheim Foundation Music Composition Fellowship and Jazz Man of the Year by New York City Jazz Record

2008 2011

Performed a large scale opera, written with Ann T. Greene, Warrior Sisters: The New Adventures of African and Asian Womyn Multi-media performance work, Power to the People: The Black Panther Suite Wrote Wicked Theory, Naked Practice Died from cancer at age 56 in Brooklyn, New York