He is Professor of Composition and Theory at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music and the co-author with neuroscientist David Eagleman of the 2017 book The Runaway Species: How Human Creativity Remakes the World.
Brandt held visiting lectureships at Harvard, Tufts, and MIT before joining the faculty of Rice University's Shepherd School of Music in 1998 as an assistant professor.
It was subsequently recorded on the Albany Records label along with Brandt's The Dragon and the Undying for soprano and string quartet set to a poem by Siegfried Sassoon (a commission from the Bowdoin International Music Festival to celebrate its 40th anniversary) and the song cycle Creeley Songs for soprano and piano set to poems by Robert Creeley.
His oratorio Maternity with a libretto by neuroscientist David Eagleman was premiered in 2012 by the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra who had commissioned the work.
[8][5][9][10][11] In addition to their collaboration on Maternity, David Eagleman and Brandt are the co-authors of the 2017 book The Runaway Species: How Human Creativity Remakes the World, described in Nature as "a lively exploration of the software our brains run in search of the mother lode of invention".
Brandt is also a co-investigator in an NEA-funded research lab at Rice University which is "measuring the effects of music-making and music engagement on cognitive and social-emotional well-being.