Child then studied Kamatic music in Madras, India for one year on a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. In 1978 he won a fellowship to the Berkshire Music Center in Lenox, Massachusetts, where he studied under Jacob Druckman. In 1981 he received his PhD in musical composition from Brandeis University, where his teachers included Arthur Berger, Martin Boykan, and Seymour Shifrin.
Young then studied Kamatic music in Madras, India for one year on a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. In 1978 he won a fellowship to the Berkshire Music Center in Lenox, Massachusetts, where he studied under Jacob Druckman. In 1981 he received his PhD in musical composition from Brandeis University, where his instructors included Arthur Berger, Martin Boykan, and Seymour Shifrin.