Lejaren Hiller
Template:Short description Template:For Lejaren Arthur Hiller Jr. (February 23, 1924, New York City – January 26, 1994, Buffalo, New York)<ref name="Gena">Lejaren Hiller (1924–1994) © 1994 by Peter Gena.</ref><ref name="NYTimes">Kozinn, Allan (February 1, 1994)"Lejaren Hiller, 69, First Composer To Write Music With a Computer", NYTimes.com; accessed July 1, 2017.</ref><ref name="Di Nunzio">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> was an American composer.
Career
His father, Lejaren Hiller, Sr., was a well-known art photographer who specialized in historical tableaux.Template:Citation needed As a child he played piano, oboe, clarinet, and saxophone. While earning a degree in chemistry at Princeton University, he also studied composition with Roger Sessions and Milton Babbitt.<ref name="NYTimes"/> From 1947 to 1952 he worked as a research chemist for DuPont in Waynesboro, Virginia, where he developed the first reliable process for dyeing Orlon and coauthored a popular textbook.<ref name="Bohn">Bohn, James (undated). Lejaren Hiller" Template:Webarchive, illinois.edu; accessed February 26, 2017. Template:Verification needed</ref>
In 1957 he collaborated with Leonard Isaacson on his String Quartet No. 4, Illiac Suite,<ref name="Di Nunzio"/> the first significant use of a computer to compose music. 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.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The musical establishment was so hostile to this interloper scientist that both Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians and the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians refused to include him until shortly before his death.Template:Citation needed
A majority of Hiller's works after 1957 do not involve computers at all, but might include stochastic music, indeterminacy, serialism, Brahmsian traditionalism, jazz, performance art, folksong and counterpoint mixed together. In 1958 Hiller founded the Experimental Music Studios at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He created the MUSICOMP ("MUsic SImulator-Interpreter for COMpositional Procedures") programming language for music composition with Robert Baker in order to create their Computer Cantata (1963).<ref name="Bohn"/><ref name="Di Nunzio"/> He also collaborated with John Cage for HPSCHD (1969).<ref name="Gena"/><ref name="NYTimes"/>
In 1968, he joined the faculty at the University at Buffalo as Slee Professor of Composition, where he established the school's first computer music facility and co-directed with Lukas Foss at the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts. Illness forced him to retire in 1989.<ref name="Gena"/><ref name="NYTimes"/>
His notable pupils include composers James Fulkerson, Larry Lake, Ilza Nogueira, David Rosenboom, Margaret Scoville, Michael Ranta, Elliott Sharp, Bernadette Speach and James Tenney.
Death
He died from Alzheimer's disease in 1994 in Buffalo.<ref name="Gena"/><ref name="NYTimes"/>
Bibliography
Hiller wrote three books:<ref name="NYTimes"/>
- Hiller, Lejaren A., and Leonard M. Issacson. (1959/1979). Experimental Music: Composition With an Electronic Computer. McGraw-Hill, New York. Template:ISBN.
- Hiller, Lejaren and Herber, Rolfe H. (1960). Principles of Chemistry.
- Hiller, Lejaren (1964). Informationstheorie und Computermusik. Template:In lang
References
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Further reading
- Bohn, James M. (2004). The Music of American Composer Lejaren Hiller and an Examination of His Early Works Involving Technology (Studies in the History and Interpretation of Music). Edwin Mellen. Template:ISBN.
See also
External links
- 1924 births
- 1994 deaths
- 20th-century American classical composers
- American male classical composers
- Musicians from Buffalo, New York
- University at Buffalo alumni
- Princeton University alumni
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty
- 20th-century American chemists
- Deaths from Alzheimer's disease in New York (state)
- Composers from New York City
- Pupils of Roger Sessions
- Experimental Music Studios alumni
- Scientists from New York (state)
- Classical musicians from New York (state)
- 20th-century American male composers