In the category of Outstanding Sound Design, Resident Production, he is a ten-time nominee and a two-time winner of the Helen Hayes Award.
Creating commercials and promos there, he learned the basics of professional production audio and developed his instinct for sound effects and music beds.
There he began in true his professional composition and recording career having been commissioned to compose scores for dance companies and independent film makers.
Shortly after that he began working with local theater companies recording and producing original music and sound-scapes for theatrical productions.
[2] His original scores and sound designs for theater used complex sequencing and sampling techniques he learned in the studios working with Rap and Hip Hop artists.
[4] In 2004, Burgess composed a film score for the documentary Crucible of War, about a refugee from Yugoslavia haunted by his past who returns to his post-war homeland.