American composer, conductor, and pianist Charles Wuorinen has passed away. Wuorinen was the first person to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for an electronic music work, Time’s Encomium. He was also a MacArthur Fellow and received numerous other commissions and awards. His book, Simple Composition, is one of the clearest explications of composing using 12-tone techniques.

He was my teacher at Rutgers University for four years, where I was studying for the Ph.D. in Music. One of the best sight-readers I have met, his musicianship was impeccable and intellect formidable.