Hiller was born on February 23, 1924, in New York City. His father,
Lejaren Hiller Sr., was a well-known art photographer who specialized in historical tableaux. As a child, Lejaren Jr. played piano, oboe, clarinet, and saxophone. While earning a degree in chemistry at
Princeton University, he also studied composition with
Roger Sessions and
Milton Babbitt. In 1957, he collaborated with
Leonard Isaacson on his
Illiac Suite, Hiller was met with hostility from the musical establishment; both ''
Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians and The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' refused to include him until shortly before his death. A majority of Hiller's works after 1957 do not involve computers at all, but might include
stochastic music,
indeterminacy,
serialism, Brahmsian traditionalism, jazz,
performance art, folk song and
counterpoint mixed together. In 1958, Hiller founded the
Experimental Music Studios at the University of Illinois. He created the MUSICOMP ("MUsic SImulator-Interpreter for COMpositional Procedures")
programming language for music composition with Robert Baker in order to create their
Computer Cantata (1963). He also collaborated with
John Cage for the composition and multimedia event
HPSCHD (1969). In 1968, he joined the faculty at the
University at Buffalo as Slee Professor of Composition, where he established the school's first computer music facility, co-directed with
Lukas Foss, at the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts. Illness forced him to retire in 1989. His notable pupils include
James Fulkerson,
Larry Lake,
Ilza Nogueira,
David Rosenboom,
Margaret Scoville, Michael Ranta,
Elliott Sharp,
Bernadette Speach, and
James Tenney. Hiller died from
Alzheimer's disease on January 26, 1994, in
Buffalo, New York. ==Bibliography==