Milton Babbitt(1916-2011)

He was a professor emeritus of music composition from Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey.

Why refuse to recognize the possibility that contemporary music has reached a stage long since attained other forms of activity? The time has passed when the normally well-educated man without special preparation could understand the most advanced work in, for example, mathematics, philosophy, and physics. Advanced music, to the extent that it reflects the knowledge and originality of the informed composer, scarcely can be expected to appear more intelligible than these arts and sciences to the person whose musical education usually has been even less extensive than his background in other fields.