(Byron), prominent American composer, teacher, and theorist; b. Philadelphia, May 10, 1916. Raised in Jackson, Mississippi, Babbitt showed a flair for music and mathematics from an early age, beginning violin studies at age four and later learning saxophone and clarinet. He entered the University of Pennsylvania at age 15, then transferred to N.Y. University to pursue his interest in music. He began studying modem music theory with composer/teacher Roger Sessions, who hired him to be his assistant at Princeton University, where he would teach from 1948 to his retirement in 1984. Beginning in 1973, he also taught at the Juilliard School in N.Y.

Babbitt was a pioneer in using a synthesizer to create music. In the late 1950s he established, along with the composer VLADIMIR USSACHEVSKY, a Center for Electronic Music that was cofunded by Princeton and Columbia universities. The center had the largest and most powerful synthesizer then available. Many of Babbitt's pieces from the 1960s were composed for this instrument.

Babbitt has also contributed to 20th-century music theory, building on the theories of one of his mentors, ARNOLD SCHOENBERG. His mathematically based theories have profoundly influenced the musical thinking of younger American composers. In 1982 he won a special citation of the Pulitzer Committee for "his life's work as a distinguished and seminal American composer."