It received its world-premiere production at Symphony Space in 2018, five months after his death, praised by Opera News as "truly a fine piece of post-modern creative work.

"[3] Performers of his works include the New York Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Brooklyn Philharmonic; conductors Pierre Boulez, Stanisław Skrowaczewski, Dennis Russell Davies and Lukas Foss; ensembles Western Wind and Kronos Quartet; soloists Philip Langridge, Mary Thomas, Elise Ross, Stanley Silverman, Alan Titus, Rinde Eckert, Igor Kipnis, Paul Zukofsky, Theo Bleckmann, Thomas Young; actors Stacy Keach, John O'Hurley and Paul Hecht.

He pursued postgraduate work at Princeton University (1956 master of fine arts) with Milton Babbitt, Roger Sessions, Earl Kim, Edward T. Cone, Arthur Mendel, Oliver Strunk, and Nino Pirrotta.

A Fulbright Fellowship (1956 – 58) enabled him to study at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome with Goffredo Petrassi and at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse in Darmstadt with Karlheinz Stockhausen, Bruno Maderna, and Luigi Nono.

He won the Elsie O. and Philip D. Sang Prize for Critics of the Fine Arts in 1969, an award previously given to Harold Clurman and subsequently to Hilton Kramer.

[8] Through his work at WBAI, where he founded the Free Music Store, Salzman was approached by Joseph Papp in 1968 to create concerts for the then-vacant Martinson Hall at The Public Theater.

The first Tango Project album, for which Salzman and his collaborators transcribed Carlos Gardel's Por una Cabeza, won a Stereo Review Award for Record of the Year and was featured prominently in the films Scent of a Woman (1992) and True Lies (1994).

In 1967, Salzman founded the "New Image of Sound" series at Hunter College, where his theatrical composition Verses and Cantos (or Foxes and Hedgehogs) was performed for the inaugural concert conducted by Dennis Russell Davies alongside the New York premiere of Berio's Laborintus II.

[11] In 1970, Salzman founded the Quog Music Theater, a mixed-media performing group, which included accordionist William Schimmel and percussionist David Van Tieghem.

[12] With Quog, Salzman experimented with theatrical forms and ensembles, creating an a capella radio opera and the music drama Lazarus (1973), combining contemporary and medieval elements, which appeared at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in 1974 before touring in Europe.

Salzman was co-director of the Festival until 1993. Notable productions during his tenure include Anthony Davis' X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X; Julie Taymor, Elliot Goldenthal, and Sidney Goldfarb's The Transposed Heads; Duke Ellington's Queenie Pie; Emily Mann, Ntozake Shange, and Baikida Carroll's Betsy Brown; Bob Telson and Lee Breuer's The Gospel at Colonus; David Henry Hwang, Philip Glass, and Jerome Sirlin's 1000 Airplanes on the Roof; Robert Xavier Rodriguez' Frida, Harry Partch's Revelation in the Courthouse Park; William Bolcom's Casino Paradise; and a 1987 production of Salzman's and Sahl's 1976 work, Stauf, a music theater version of Faust directed by Rhoda Levine.

Among the major works which were produced at the Center for Contemporary Opera during Salzman's tenure are Michael Dellaira and J. D. McClatchy's The Secret Agent and Daron Hagen and Paul Muldoon's Vera of Las Vegas.

In 1980, Salzman composed and conducted instrumental music and song for Yuri Rasovsky's Peabody Award-winning audio dramatization of Homer's Odyssey for the National Radio Theater.

[17] Salzman's more recent work includes the madrigal comedy Jukebox in the Tavern of Love, with text and stage direction by Valeria Vasilevski.