lost their jobs. As a child Appleton studied piano with Jacob Gimpel and Theodore Saidenberg but preferred composing his own music rather than playing the works assigned to him (e.g. Chopin, Scarlatti, Prokofiev). However, he developed a deep, lifelong affection for Russian music. Career 1960s From 1957 to 1961 Appleton was a student at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. These years shaped his future life: he composed for his fellow students who performed everything he composed, he decided to become a college professor and in 1959 he married his first wife, a fellow student, Georganna Towne. Following his graduation from Reed College, Appleton moved to San Francisco, California, where his first child was born (Jennifer Appleton). Simultaneously he studied composition with Andrew Imbrie at the University of California, Berkeley, collaborated with writer Willard S. Bain (1938–2000) writing musical comedies and was employed at the Macy's department store as an assistant buyer. In 1962–1963 Appleton was the music teacher at the Verde Valley School in Sedona, Arizona, where he conducted the choir and orchestra, taught music theory, history and piano lessons. From 1963 to 1966 Appleton was a graduate student at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, where he studied with Homer Keller, Henri Lazarof, Felix Salzer and Robert Trotter. It was there that he assembled a primitive electronic music studio and composed his first works in this genre. His thesis was an orchestral work, After "Nude Descending a Staircase". Most of the instrumental and vocal music he composed at this time used serial technique that he loved to compose. During his years in Eugene he became a lifelong friend of the pianist Gabriel Chodos. In 1966, on the basis of his early electronic music, he was invited by Vladimir Ussachevsky at Columbia University to study in the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. He became an advocate for electronic music and became friends with fellow composers Charles Dodge, Emmanuel Ghent and Richard Taruskin. During 1966–1968 he was hired by Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, to establish an electronic music studio. When the university officials reneged on their promise, he resigned and accepted a position at Dartmouth College. It was during this year that his son, Jon Jason Appleton was born ( JJ Appleton; born April 19, 1967). 1970s At Dartmouth College Appleton's work in electronic music was generously encouraged by the administration of President John G. Kemeny and by a generous