[1] During the mid-1950s Brant came to the conclusion that (as he himself put it) "single-style music … could no longer evoke the new stresses, layered insanities, and multi-directional assaults of contemporary life on the spirit."

[2] Other composers whom he assisted as orchestrator included Virgil Thomson, Aaron Copland, George Antheil, Douglas Moore, and Gordon Parks.

Beginning with the 1953 score Rural Antiphonies (predating Stockhausen's Gruppen of 1955–57 but coming thirty-five years after Charles Ives's Fourth Symphony of 1912–18 and Rued Langgaard's Music of the Spheres of 1916–18), Brant developed the concept of spatial music, in which the location of instruments and/or voices in physical space is a significant compositional element.

[6] The planned positioning of performers throughout the hall, as well as on stage, was an essential factor in his composing scheme and a point of departure for a radically expanded range and intensity of musical expression.

Brant's mastery[6] of spatial composing technique enabled him to write textures of unprecedented polyphonic and/or polystylistic complexity while providing maximum resonance in the hall and increased clarity of musical detail for the listener.

[7] In keeping with Brant's belief that music can be as complex and contradictory as everyday life, his larger works often employ multiple, contrasting performing forces, as in Meteor Farm (1982) for symphony orchestra, large jazz band, two choruses, West African drum ensemble and chorus, South Indian soloists, large Javanese Gamelan ensemble, percussion orchestra and two Western solo sopranos.

[8] With the exception of pieces composed for recorded media (in which he used over-dubbing or acoustical sound sources), Brant did not use electronic materials or permit amplification in his music[citation needed].

Ice Field, for large orchestral groups and organ, was commissioned by Other Minds for a December 2001 premiere by the San Francisco Symphony.

A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Brant was awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in Music for Ice Field (2001), commissioned by Other Minds and premiered by the San Francisco Symphony under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas.