He holds degrees from Duke University, University of Michigan, and Rice University and will begin this fall as Assistant Professor of Composition and Theory at the University of South Carolina. His composition Nonallemande is inspired by and takes off from the first twenty-two notes of the Allamande of Bach's Flute Partita and spins them out in a sort of fantasy. The piece began with a nervous shifting pattern that the writer found reminiscent of Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks Concerto. There were flute passages that sounded like snippets of Bach, and there was much give and take between the instruments and an amazing intricate pizzicato ending.