The Princeton University Department of Music will present a free concert celebrating the life and music of composer Milton Babbitt who was Princeton's William Shubael Conant Professor of Music Emeritus from 1938 to 1984 when he retired. The concert will take place in Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall. A reception in the Richardson Auditorium lounge will follow the performance. Both are free and open to the public.
Milton Babbitt’s mathematical expertise guided his creation of complex, modernist soundscapes that influenced generations of artists and scholars. He died on January 29, 2011 of natural causes at the University Medical Center at Princeton. He was 94. He was a driving force behind the growth of Princeton's Department of Music and was a revered mentor whose students produced compositions and scholarly work in genres ranging from the avant-garde to the Broadway stage.
In addition to teaching at Princeton, Babbitt was on the faculty of the Juilliard School in New York City from 1971 to 2008. He also had private students, including the Broadway songwriter Stephen Sondheim.
