Editing Milton Babbitt (section)

==Biography==
Babbitt was born in [[Philadelphia]]{{sfn|Barkin & Brody|2001}} to Albert E. Babbitt and Sarah Potamkin, who were Jewish.{{sfn|Anon. n.d.(b)}} He was raised in [[Jackson, Mississippi]], and began studying the violin when he was four but soon switched to clarinet and saxophone. Early in his life he was attracted to [[jazz]] and [[theater music]], and "played in every pit-orchestra that came to town".{{sfn|Duckworth|1995|p=56}} Babbitt was making his own arrangements of popular songs by age 7, "wrote a lot of pop tunes for school productions",{{sfn|Duckworth|1995|p=60}} and won a local songwriting contest when he was 13.{{sfn|Kozinn|2011}} A Jackson newspaper called Babbitt a "whiz kid" and noted "that he had perfect pitch and could add up his family's grocery bills in his head. In his teens he became a great fan of jazz cornet player [[Bix Beiderbecke]]".<ref>{{Cite web |first=Lynn |last=Raley |title=Babbitt, Milton |url=https://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/milton-babbitt/ |access-date=2022-07-21 |website=Mississippi Encyclopedia |language=en-US}}</ref>

Babbitt's father was a mathematician, and Babbitt intended to study mathematics when he entered the [[University of Pennsylvania]] in 1931. But he soon transferred to [[New York University]], 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 wrote articles on [[twelve-tone music]], including the first description of [[combinatoriality]] and a serial "time-point" technique. Babbitt was a pioneer in integral serialism, serially organizing dynamics and rhythms, not just pitches. He emphasized the importance of composers pursuing composition as research rather than focusing on societal approval.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mailman |first=Joshua Banks |date=2021-05-04 |title=On Milton Babbitt: Progressive Artistic Research, Decorous Pranks, and Pig-Stand Jazz |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07494467.2021.2031066 |journal=Contemporary Music Review |volume=40 |issue=2-3 |pages=125-126 |doi=10.1080/07494467.2021.2031066 |issn=0749-4467}}</ref> After receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree from [[New York University College of Arts & Science]] in 1935 with [[Phi Beta Kappa]] honors, he studied under [[Roger Sessions]], first privately and then at [[Princeton University]]. He joined Princeton's music faculty in 1938 and received one of Princeton's first Master of Fine Arts degrees in 1942.<ref name="princeton news 2011">{{cite news |last1=Quiñones |first1=Eric |title=Famed composer, music scholar Milton Babbitt dies |url=https://www.princeton.edu/news/2011/01/31/famed-composer-music-scholar-milton-babbitt-dies |access-date=23 June 2024 |agency=[[Princeton University]] |date=31 Jan 2011}}</ref>{{sfn|Barkin & Brody|2001}} During the [[Second World War]], Babbitt divided his time between mathematical research in Washington, D.C. and Princeton, where he was a member of the mathematics faculty from 1943 to 1945.{{sfn|Barkin & Brody|2001}}

In 1948, Babbitt returned to Princeton's music faculty and in 1973 he joined the faculty of the [[Juilliard School]]. Among his students are music theorists [[David Lewin]] and [[John Rahn]], composers [[Bruce Adolphe]], [[Michael Dellaira]], [[Kenneth Fuchs]], [[Laura Karpman]], [[Paul Lansky]], [[Donald Martino]], [[John Melby]], [[Kenneth Lampl]], [[Tobias Picker]], and [[James K. Randall]], the theater composer [[Stephen Sondheim]], composers and pianists [[Frederic Rzewski]] and [[Richard Aaker Trythall]], and the jazz guitarist and composer [[Stanley Jordan]].

In 1958, Babbitt achieved unsought notoriety through an article in the popular magazine ''[[High Fidelity (magazine)|High Fidelity]]''.{{sfn|Babbitt|1958}} His title for the article was originally "The Composer as Specialist" (as later published several times{{sfn|Babbitt|2003|pp=48–54}}) but, he said, "The editor, without my knowledge and—therefore—my consent or assent, replaced my title by the more 'provocative' one: '[[Who Cares if You Listen]]?', a title which reflects little of the letter and nothing of the spirit of the article".{{sfn|Babbitt|1991|p=15}} In 1991, Babbitt said of the article's lasting notoriety, "For all that the true source of that offensively vulgar title has been revealed many times, in many ways, even—eventually—by the offending journal itself, I still am far more likely to be known as the author of 'Who Cares if You Listen?' than as the composer of music to which you may or may not care to listen".{{sfn|Babbitt|1991|p=15}} In 2006, Babbitt told the ''[[Princeton Alumni Weekly]]'', "Now obviously, I care very deeply if you listen [...] if nobody listens and nobody cares, you're not going to be writing music for very long".<ref name="princeton news 2011" />

Around 1960, Babbitt became interested in [[electronic music]]. [[RCA]] hired him as consultant composer to work with its [[RCA Mark II Synthesizer]] at the [[Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center]] (known since 1996 as the Columbia University Computer Music Center). In 1960, Babbitt was awarded a [[Guggenheim Fellowship]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=Milton Babbitt - John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation |url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/milton-babbitt/ |access-date=2024-06-17 |website=www.gf.org}}</ref> in music composition. In 1961, he wrote ''Composition for Synthesizer'', marking the beginning of a second period in his output. Babbitt was less interested in producing new timbres than in the rhythmic precision he could achieve with the synthesizer, a degree of precision previously unobtainable in performance.{{sfn|Barkin & Brody|2001}} 

Through the 1960s and 1970s, Babbitt wrote both electronic music and music for conventional [[musical instrument]]s, often combining the two. ''[[Philomel (Babbitt)|Philomel]]'' (1964), for example, is for soprano and a synthesized accompaniment (including the recorded and manipulated voice of [[Bethany Beardslee]], for whom the piece was composed) stored on [[magnetic tape]].

By the end of the 1970s, Babbitt was beginning his third creative period by shifting his focus away from electronic music, the genre that first gained him public notice.{{sfn|Cook|2013}} Babbitt's compositions are typically considered atonal, but it has also been shown that, especially in his third-period music, notes from his serial structures (all-partition arrays and superarrays) are sometimes arranged and coordinated to forge tonal chords, cadential phrases, simulated tonal voice-leading, and other tonal allusions, allowing for double meaning (serial and tonal), like many of his composition titles.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Mailman |first=Joshua Banks |date=2020-06-01 |title=Portmantonality and Babbitt's Poetics of Double Entendre |url=https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.20.26.2/mto.20.26.2.mailman.html |journal=Music Theory Online |language=en |volume=26 |issue=2|doi=10.30535/mto.26.2.9 |doi-access=free }}</ref> This phenomenon of "double meaning" of notes (pitches) in the context of his double-meaning titles has been called ''portmantonality''.<ref name=":0" />

From 1985 until his death, Babbitt served as the Chairman of the [[BMI Student Composer Award]]s, the international competition for young classical composers. A resident of [[Princeton, New Jersey]], he died there on January 29, 2011, aged 94.{{sfn|Kozinn|2011}}{{sfn|Anon.|2011b}}

Filmmaker [[Robert Hilferty]]'s ''Babbitt: Portrait of a Serial Composer'' broadly depicts Babbitt's thinking, attitudes about his past, and work in footage largely from 1991–1992. The film was not completed and fully edited until 2010, and was presented on [[NPR]] online upon Babbitt's death.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2011-01-13 |title=Milton Babbitt: Portrait Of A Serial Composer |language=en |publisher=NPR |url=https://www.npr.org/2011/01/13/144763523/milton-babbitt-portrait-of-a-serial-composer |access-date=2022-07-25}}</ref><ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuTRWHAd_IM Babbitt: Portrait of a Serial Composer]</ref>