Upon retirement from active teaching in 1992, he held the title of Albert A. Stanley Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Composition until his death in 2016.
[1] He was a member of the Gamma Pi chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia at California State University-Fresno, 1942.
[2] After his military service, Bassett attended the University of Michigan where he studied composition with Homer Keller and Ross Lee Finney.
A Fulbright fellowship in 1950 supported study in Paris at the Ecole Normale de Musique with Arthur Honegger and also with Nadia Boulanger.
"[4] Bassett was a founding member of the U-M electronic music studio, as well as director of the Contemporary Directions Performance Project until his retirement in 1991.