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Milton Byron Babbitt (born May 10, 1916) is an American composer. He is particularly noted for his...

Milton Byron Babbitt (born May 10, 1916) is an American composer. He is particularly noted for his pioneering serial and electronic music. Babbitt was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and was raised in Jackson, Mississippi. He studied violin and later clarinet and saxophone as a child. Early in his life he showed ability in jazz and popular music. Babbitt's father was a mathematician, and it was mathematics that Babbitt intended to study when he entered the University of Pennsylvania in 1931. However, he soon left and went to New York University instead, where he studied music with Philip James and Marion Bauer. There he became interested in the music of the composers of the Second Viennese School, and went on to write a number of articles on twelve tone music including the first description of combinatoriality and a serial "time-point" technique. After receiving his bachelor of arts degree from New York University College of Arts and Science in 1935 with Phi Beta Kappa honors, he studied under Roger Sessions, first privately, later at Princeton University, where he joined the music faculty in 1938 and received one of Princeton's first Master of Fine Arts degrees in 1942 (Barkin