After attending Virginia Commonwealth University, The Boston Conservatory and The University of Michigan, he earned a PhD in Music at Harvard University where he was awarded the Variell Fellowship. While at Harvard he served as Ivan Tcherepnin's Teaching Fellow in the Electronic Music Studio and as one of Louise Vosgerchian's Teaching Fellows for Nineteenth-Century Piano Literature. He was founding manager of The Harvard Group for New Music, a resident professional chamber ensemble, and artistic director of NEWCOMP, a non-profit computer arts organization which presented concerts and hosted an international computer music competition.