I was born in La Jolla, California, to Jan and Danna Mongoven on April 30, 1979. I grew up in Carlsbad, California. There my brother Cory and I founded our first band with our friend Brian Snyder in 1990, influenced by bands such as Def Leppard and Metallica. I played guitar and my brother played bass; Brian played drums. In junior high, a friend of mine named Matthew Stevens introduced me to classical music. From that point on I listened to classical music practically exlusively. In high school, I had regular composition with Nathan Phillips, who was then a graduate student at UCSD studying under Roger Reynolds.

After graduating from Carlsbad High School I moved to Boston in 1997, where I studied Classical Composition under Alan Fletcher at New England Conservatory of Music. There I began composing with Fibonacci numbers in my first semester. After my studies, I moved to Vienna to learn the German language in 2001. After a year there I spent six months in California before moving to Germany on New Year’s Eve 2002. I then spent time in Berlin, Munich, Halle, Leipzig and Hamburg composing and teaching English. In 2007, I moved to Weimar to begin studies in Electro-Acoustic Composition at the Hochschule für Musik FRANZ LISZT under Robin Minard. I completed my studies in 2009. Starting in September 2009, I will be a Ph.D. student in the Media Arts and Technology program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Curtis Roads will be my graduate adviser.