Herbert Brün

Herbert Brün (July 9, 1918 – November 6, 2000) was a composer and cybernetician. Born in Berlin, Germany, he taught at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign from 1962 until he retired several years before his death. He was a pioneer of electronic and computer music, incorporating ideas from cybernetics into his work. Career Brün left Germany in 1936 to study piano and composition at the Jerusalem Conservatory in Mandatory Palestine with Stefan Wolpe, Eli Friedman and Frank Pelleg. While in Palestine, he also worked as a jazz pianist. In 1948, he received a scholarship to further his studies in the United States at Tanglewood and Columbia University through 1950. His work in electronic music began in Paris in the late 1950s, followed by work at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk Studio for Electronic Music in Cologne and the Siemens studio in Munich. During the 1950s, he also worked as composer and conductor of music for the theater, gave lectures and seminars emphasizing the function of music in society, and did a series of broadcasts on contemporary music. After a lecture tour of the United States in 1962, he was invited by composer Lejaren Hiller to join the University of Illinois