Edward Toner Cone (May 4, 1917 – October 23, 2004) was an American composer, music theorist, pianist, and philanthropist. Cone was born in Greensboro, North Carolina. He studied composition under Roger Sessions at Princeton University, receiving his bachelor's in 1939 (Latin salutatorian and the first Princeton student to submit a musical composition as his senior thesis). Cone and Milton Babbitt were the first to earn graduate degrees in musical composition from Princeton (MFA, 1942). He studied piano with Karl Ulrich Schnabel and Edward Steuermann. During the Second World War, Cone served first in the army (as a pianist) and later in the Office of Strategic Services. Beginning in 1946, he taught at Princeton. He was the co-editor of the journal Perspectives of New Music between 1965 and