Library Person

Lejaren Hiller

American composer and chemist; pioneer of computer-composed music, founder of the University of Illinois Experimental Music Studios.

Lejaren Hiller (1924–1994), trained as a chemist, used the University of Illinois’s ILLIAC I computer with Leonard Isaacson to generate the Illiac Suite (1957) for string quartet — generally considered the first score composed by computer — before founding the university’s Experimental Music Studios in 1958 and directing its Electronic Music Studio until 1968. He later collaborated with John Cage on HPSCHD (1967–69), a work for harpsichords and computer-generated tape combining Cage’s chance procedures with Hiller’s programming.

Works in the Library