Karlheinz Stockhausen was born on August 22, 1928 in Mödrath, near Cologne. He studied piano and music education at the Cologne National Conservatory; philosophy, musicology, and philology at Cologne University; and acoustics and information theory (with Werner Meyer-Eppler) at Bonn University. In 1952, he studied briefly with Messiaen in Paris. Since the early 1950s, Stockhausen has been at the forefront of nearly all the most radical developments in music: serialism, electronic music, graphic notation, and "process music," among others. He has also exerted an enormous influence as a teacher and theorist. Since 1977 Stockhausen has been composing LICHT, a series of seven operas which he expects to complete in 2005.