He attended Phillips Exeter Academy,[5] and as an Amherst College undergraduate, he initially majored in geology, then switched to pursue music instead, becoming a composer and conductor.

Based on the standard five-movement structure of the Mass, the "Missa Charles Darwin" honors the compositional and harmonic conventions of its musical antecedents.

Unlike traditional Mass settings, however, the sacred texts have been replaced with excerpts from On the Origin of Species, The Descent of Man, and Darwin's extant correspondence.

[16] This 35-minute cantata for 24 voices uses new texts by poet Todd Hearon and focuses on issues of displacement and ecology around the creation of the Quabbin Reservoir.

Other current and recent commissions include works for the Seattle Bach Choir,[17] Ensemble Nobiles (Leipzig), Boston Choral Ensemble, soprano Mary Hubbell (USA), contralto Kristine Gether (Denmark), countertenor Geoffrey Silver (UK), and others.