Milton Babbitt

Biography

Milton Byron Babbitt (born 10 May 1916 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American composer particularly noted for his pioneering serial, and electronic compositions.

In 1947, Babbitt wrote his Three Compositions for Piano, which are the earliest examples of total serialization in music. In 1958, Babbitt achieved unsought notoriety through an article in the popular magazine High Fidelity. His title for the article, "The Composer as Specialist", was changed, without his knowledge or consent, to "Who Cares if You Listen?"

Babbitt later became interested in electronic music. He was hired by RCA as consultant composer to work with their RCA Mark II Synthesizer, and in 1961 produced his Composition for Synthesizer. Many other composers regarded electronic instruments as a way of producing new timbres. Babbitt was much more interested in the rhythmic precision he could achieve using the Mark II synthesizer, a sort of precision regarded at the time as impossible in performance by actual, live, human performers.

He is a founder and member of the Committee of Direction for the Electronic Music Center of Columbia-Princeton Universities and a member of the Editorial Board of Perspectives of New Music. The recipient of numerous honors, commissions, and awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship and a Pulitzer Prize Citation for his "life's work as a distinguished and seminal American composer," Babbitt is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Works for Winds

• All Set (1957)

References

None discovered thus far.