 He first came to the United States in 1958 on a Fulbright fellowship, studying ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles from 1958 to 1960, and later teaching there.He returned to India and was Head of the Department of Music at the University of Madras from 1961 to 1965.He settled in the United States in 1966, and also taught at the California Institute of the Arts.