[9] In a career which encompassed more than forty years of composition his output came to include over 450 works for chorus, orchestra, chamber ensemble, opera, solo voice, piano, guitar, organ, and band.

Conductors who have premièred his works include Rollo Dilworth, Christoph von Dohnányi, C. William Harwood, Sir Neville Marriner, Kurt Masur, Leonard Slatkin, and Osmo Vänskä.

Notable works for vocalist and orchestra include commissions for Thomas Hampson, Deborah Voigt, Samuel Ramey, Elizabeth Futral, Håkan Hagegård and Evelyn Lear.

Instrumental soloists range from Doc Severinsen and Leo Kottke to Robert McDuffie, William Preucil, Lynn Harrell and Cynthia Phelps.

[6] Paulus's most popular works may be two short choral anthems, one religious, "Pilgrims' Hymn," and a non-religious but far from nakedly secular composition, "The Road Home."

"Pilgrims' Hymn" was part of a one-act opera, The Three Hermits, commissioned by the House of Hope Presbyterian Church of St. Paul, MN, where it premiered in 1997.

"The Road Home" was commissioned by Minnesota's Dale Warland Singers in 2001 and is based on an original tune found in the 1835 Southern Harmony Songbook.