- He was a professor emeritus of music composition from Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey.
- He was raised in Jackson, Mississippi. He began playing the violin at 4 years old and later played the clarinet and saxophone. He enjoyed playing jazz and theatre music too.
- He was a 16 year old student at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1932. In 1933, he became a composition student at Marion Bauer and Philip James at New York University in New York City. He studied privately with Roger Sessions. In 1938, he was invited to join the Princeton Composition Faculty in Princeton, New Jersey. He succeeded Sessions as the William Shubael Conant Professor of Music in 1965.
- He was also on the faculty of Juilliard School where he began teaching in 1973. He also taught at Salzburg Seminar in American Studies; the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood in Massachusetts; the new music academy at Darmstadt, Germany; and the New England Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts.
- His students have included Mario Davidovsky, John Eaton, and Stephen Sondheim.
- During World War II, he taught mathematics at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey and undertook secret research in Washington D.C.
- He was awarded a Special Pulitzer Price for Lifetime Achievement in 1982.
- In 1986, he was awarded a $300,000 MacArthur Fellowship.
- He was also awarded the Joseph Bearns Prize from Columbia University in New York City for his piece, "Music for the Mass" in 1941. He was also awarded the New York Music Critics Circle Awards for "Composition of Four Instruments" in 1949 and for "Philomel" in 1964. He was awarded the Creative Arts Award from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts in 1970. He was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1965.
- He is survived by his daughter, Betty Anne Duggan, and two grandchildren-Julie and Adam.
- Composer known for his dissonant compositions. Developed the first electronic synthesizer.
- Longtime member of the music department faculty at Princeton University.
- Received a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation in 1982 "[f]or his life's work as a distinguished and seminal American composer".
- Received a MacArthur Foundation grant (the so-called "genius grant") in 1986.
- Received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal in 1988.
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