Lejaren Hiller

Composer

1924 – 1994

50

Who was Lejaren Hiller?

Lejaren Arthur Hiller was an American composer. In 1957 he collaborated on the first significant computer music composition, Illiac Suite, with Leonard Issacson. It was his fourth string quartet. In 1958 he founded the Experimental Music Studio at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His notable pupils included composers James Fulkerson, Larry Lake, Ilza Nogueira, David Rosenboom, Bernadette Speach and James Tenney.

He was originally trained as a chemist, and worked as a research chemist for DuPont in Waynesboro, Virginia from 1947 to 1952. He developed the first reliable process for dyeing Orlon and coauthored a popular textbook.

He played piano, oboe, clarinet, and saxophone as a child. He also studied composition with Roger Sessions and Milton Babbitt while earning his chemistry degree at Princeton University. His father, Lejaren Hiller, Sr., was a well-known art photographer who specialized in historical tableaux.

He wrote an article on the Illiac Suite for Scientific American which garnered a lot of attention from the press, generating a storm of controversy.

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Born
Feb 23, 1924
New York City
Also known as
  • Hiller, Lejaren
Nationality
  • United States of America
Profession
Education
  • University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
  • Princeton University
Lived in
  • Buffalo
Died
Jan 26, 1994
Buffalo

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

Citation

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