University of Illinois Experimental Music Studios

Founded in 1958 by Lejaren Hiller at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Experimental Music Studios were arguably the first electronic/computer music studio in the Western Hemisphere. Hiller had already used the university’s ILLIAC I computer with Leonard Isaacson to generate the Illiac Suite for string quartet (1957) — generally considered the first score composed by computer — before the Studios formalized that research.