The 1976 premier of his Sinfonie N° 1 afforded him his initial experience in the symphonic genre, both as composer and conductor at the Newport Music Festival.

He studied Biology and Composition concurrently at Oberlin College and Oberlin Conservatory of Music before attending Harvard University on a full fellowship. He holds a PhD in Composition from Harvard.

Among his awards as a composer are a BMI Award, First Prize in the National Society of Arts and Letters Composition Competition, an American Music Center Grant and a Fellowship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for further study of composition with Isang Yun in Berlin in 1977.

During his time in Berlin, he continued piano studies as well as conducting under Professor Hans Martin Rabenstein. It was during this period that he composed his Sinfonie N° 2 (Grodek) before assuming a position as pianist at the opera house in Graz, Austria.

Career in the Symphony. In 1982, he was engaged to Lorin Maazel as Repetiteur at the Vienna State Opera, a position which he held until his appointment by Maazel as Associate Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony from 1988 to 1991. He returned to Europe as I. Kapellmeister at the Aachen Opera where he subsequently also served as Music Director and Studienleiter. His international engagements began during these years with concert and opera performance at major musical centers in Europe, South America and Japan. For the first South American performances of the three-act version of Alban Berg’s Lulu, he was engaged to inaugurate the 1993 season at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Since that time, he has been a regular guest at the Teatro Colón and served as its Music Director from 2005 to 2008.