Composer Anthony Brandt is Professor of Composition and Theory at the Shepherd School of Music. His catalogue includes four chamber operas, as well as orchestral, chamber, vocal, theater, dance, and television scores. He is a three-time MacDowell fellow and has also been a fellow at Copland House and the Djerassi Resident Artists Colony. Other honors include a Koussevitzky Commission from the Library of Congress and Chamber Music America’s 2025 Interdisciplinary Collaboration of the Year Award, awarded for Meeting of Minds, his pioneering collaboration with NobleMotion Dance and the University of Houston BRAIN Center. Albums of Dr. Brandt’s music are available on the PARMA, Albany and Crystal Records labels.

Dr. Brandt is co-founder and Artistic Director of the Houston-based contemporary music ensemble Musiqa, two-time winners of Adventurous Programming Awards from Chamber Music America and ASCAP. Musiqa has presented the music of nearly 300 living composers, including close to 100 world premieres. Musiqa’s free educational programs have served over 70,000 public school students.

Dr. Brandt and neuroscientist David Eagleman have co-authored The Runaway Species, published in fourteen countries. Dr. Brandt has also contributed chapters to several volumes, including the Oxford Handbook of Music and the Brain and upcoming Oxford Handbook of Music and Language. He has published papers in the Creativity Research Journal, Journal of Creativity, PNAS, and other journals. As a Senior Research Fellow at Udayana University in 2024, he helped conduct the first neuroimaging studies of gamelan music and dance in Bali. He is currently a co-investigator in an NEA Research Lab examining the benefits of musical creativity for the elderly, as well as several other studies involving music and the brain. Dr. Brandt recently founded the Music, Mind and Body Lab at the Shepherd School of Music.