Beginning in 1958, he was a student of Aaron Copland at the Berkshire Music Center (currently the Tanglewood Music Center) in Lenox, Massachusetts. At Berkshire, he also met American composer, Milton Babbitt, who persuaded him to work at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center (currently the Computer Music Center at Columbia University) in New York City. Davidovsky was appointed Associate Director of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in 1960 where he inevitably began experimenting with the relationships between live instruments and electronic sounds.