Babbitt, Milton, 1916-, American composer, b. Philadelphia. Babbitt turned to music after studying mathematics. He was a composition pupil of Roger Sessions at Princeton. Babbitt has attempted to apply twelve-tone principles to all the elements of composition: dynamics, timbre, and rhythm, as well as melody and harmony. He calls this "total serialization" (see serial music). In 1959, Babbitt became one of the directors of the new Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York City. His works include Three Compositions for Piano (1947), three string quartets (1942, 1954, 1969-70), Composition for Synthesizer (1961), Philomel (1964) for soprano, taped soprano, and synthesizer, A Solo Requiem for soprano and piano, and Dual (1980) for cello and piano. In 1982 he received a special Pulitzer citation for the body of his work.