Lejaren Hiller

Lejaren Arthur Hiller ( born February 23, 1924 in New York City; † January 26, 1994 in Buffalo ) was an American composer, music theorist and chemist.

Life

Hiller was interested in early music took composition lessons with Harvey Officer and oboe lessons with Joseph Marx. He then studied until 1947 chemistry at Princeton University and parallel music theory and composition with Milton Babbitt and Roger Sessions. From 1946 to 1952 he worked in the Research Department of DuPont in Waynesboro, Virginia, where he developed the first reliable method for dyeing Orlon.

In 1952 Hiller has taught at the Faculty of Chemistry of the University of Illinois. He also continued his musical training at Hubert Kessler. He had at the Faculty of Chemistry access to computers and experimented with their use in the composition. Thus was founded in 1957 as the first computer- assisted composition its ILLIAC Suite (String Quartet No.. 4). In 1958 he joined the Faculty of Music, where he established a studio for experimental music.

From 1968, Hiller was a professor of composition at the University of Buffalo. He had two Fulbright lectureships: 1973-1974 at the Music Academy of Warsaw and in 1980 in Salvador da Bahia. In addition to his composition Hiller published several writings on information theory and its relation to music and computer music. Hiller was married to actress Elizabeth Halsey since 1945.

Swell

• University of Illinios, Experimental Music Studio - Lejaren Hiller
• Kallisti Music Press - Lejaren Hiller