[1] A renowned teacher, he taught many future jazz and classical composers, including Burt Bacharach, Dave Brubeck, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Iannis Xenakis among others.

From 1917 to 1919, he served as secretary to Paul Claudel, the poet and dramatist who was then the French ambassador to Brazil, and with whom Milhaud collaborated for many years, writing music for many of his poems and plays.

Milhaud dedicated his Fifth String Quartet (1920) to Arnold Schoenberg,[7] and the next year conducted both the French and British premieres of Pierrot lunaire after multiple rehearsals.

The next year, he completed La création du monde (The Creation of the World), using ideas and idioms from jazz, cast as a ballet in six continuous dance scenes.

[12] He secured a teaching post at Mills College in Oakland, California, where he composed the opera Bolivar (1943) and collaborated with Henri Temianka and the Paganini Quartet.

Milhaud (like such contemporaries as Paul Hindemith, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Henry Cowell, Alan Hovhaness, Bohuslav Martinů, and Heitor Villa-Lobos) worked very rapidly.

His most popular works include Le bœuf sur le toit (a ballet that lent its name to the legendary cabaret Milhaud and other members of Les Six frequented), La création du monde (a ballet for small orchestra with solo saxophone, influenced by jazz), Scaramouche (a suite for two pianos, also for alto saxophone or clarinet and orchestra), and Saudades do Brasil (a dance suite).

When Madelaine Milhaud visited Mills College in the early eighties, Emmanuel of Radio à la Carte was able to have a conversation with her about her husband's playing before they moved to California for a while.

She shared that when people asked where they could hear the new young musicians, they would be told that the "Boeuf est sur le toit", the jam sessions is taking place on the roof.

For as one of its most prolific composers (around 450 works), the quality of his music is so patently uneven that the reputation for the banal and the shallow has masked what is or might be (given the paucity of performances) both inspired and fascinating.

"[22] For a composer of acknowledged influence and significance, a number of his pieces lack contemporary professional recordings, such as the second Viola Concerto – a consequence perhaps of his prolific and uneven output.