Composer Larry Austin studied with Violet Archer at North Texas State University, with Darius Milhaud at Mills College, and with Seymour Shifrin and Andrew Imbrie at the University of California in Berkeley. Austin taught at the University of California at Davis, the University of South Florida, and in 1978 began teaching at the University of North Texas, where he co-founded CEMI and established the computer music studios. In 1966, Austin founded SOURCE magazine, which became the primary house organ for avant-garde music-making in America until 1971. In 1986, Austin founded CDCM (the Consortium to Distribute Computer Music) which, through Centaur Records, has released more than 20 compilation discs of computer music, including some of Austin's own. Although much of Austin's computer music is considered groundbreaking, and some of his conventionally scored music, such as the zany piano piece Tango Violento (1984), has elicited positive comment, Austin is best known for a work he didn't compose -- his edition of Charles Ives' "Universe" Symphony. Austin began in 1974 through attempting to realize Ives' Life Pulse Prelude utilizing the verbal description in Ives' Memos; his realization of the complete symphony was presented for the first time by the Cincinnati Philharmonia in 1996. Austin has received the coveted "Magesterium" prize from the International Electroacoustic Competition in Bourges for his work BluesAx (1996), the first ever awarded to an American composer.