Independent and eclectic composer who wrote for orchestra, piano, and chamber ensemble. He joined the tonality-based Delian Society.
He went to Yale University School of Music for his Masters, where he was taught by Mel Powell. He also studied under Nadia Reisenberg at the Mannes College of Music.
He experimented with atonality and twelve-tone techniques, only to drift away from this style of music after graduating from Yale.
He was born in Brooklyn, but grew up in New York City, where his family sent him to public schools and later CCNY, where he majored in music.
He experimented in his early years with combining Igor Stravinsky's music with atonal and twelve-tone techniques.