Returning to the United States, he continued his studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where his composition teachers included Ingolf Dahl and Seymour Shifrin.
From 1975 to 1977 he studied electronic music with Hans Ulrich Humpert at the Hochschule für Musik Köln, later working as an organist at the Kirche St. Nikolaus von Tolentino in Rösrath from 1979 to 1982.
He received six commissions from WDR in Cologne for pieces he realised in the electronic-music studio there, among them Pulse Music III in 1978, Vanishing Points in 1988, and A Cappella in 1997.
[4] He has also had works commissioned by Radio Bremen, from pianist Herbert Henck (48 Variations, for 2 pianos), from Dartmouth College, and from the Ministry of Culture of North Rhine–Westphalia.
"His work over the next 25 years was devoted entirely to the exploration and development of various aspects of this synthesis, in particular the fusion of elemental tonal functions with chromatic time structures".