His works for the clarinet, his own instrument, also include I Am Thyrsis of Etna, blessed with a tuneful voice, transcribed from a mockingbird, which is also the basis of Ende Gut, Frage., combined with that text by sound poet Michael Lentz. Both works explore the ambiguity between the nature of culture (i.e. music and language) and the culture of nature (i.e. biological necessity), but decidedly favors the former in Un Coup de dés, a radiophonic work commissioned by the Südwestrundfunk (Baden-Baden) for its New Jazz Meeting 2003, created in collaboration with poet Yoko Tawada and an ensemble that included Kent Clelland, John Edwards, Gerry Hemingway, Radu Malfatti, and David Smeyers.

Rothman’s piano music is recorded by Eric Huebner for Albany Records (Troy 967), and is also played by pianists Jeanne Golan and Bernhard Wambach. Phyllis Bryn-Julson has recorded his … Abanico para los toros with Theater Chamber Players of Kennedy Center and Ensemble Avance; Tom Buckner has performed and recorded Cézanne’s Doubt (New World Records); and Mary Nessinger recorded The Rape of Ophelia (Albany Records).

His music is frequently heard in the US and Europe, and has been produced by the Dansk Radio, Hessischer Rundfunk, Osterrischischen Rundfunks Graz and Wien, Radio Bremen, Radio France, Südwestrundfunk, Westdeutcherrundfunk, and Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie. His work has been supported by commissions and residencies at the Dansk Institut fur Elektroakustiks Muzik (Aarhus), ExperimentalStudio Des Südwestrundfunks/Heinrich-Strobel-Stiftung (Freiburg), Institut für Electronische Musik und Akustiks (Graz), Ircam (Paris), and Mills College Center for Contemporary Music (Oakland).

He has received grants from, among others, the Argosy Contemporary Music Fund, the Fondation d’Art de La Napoule, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Rockefeller Foundation; between 1994 and 2006 he taught at California Institute of the Arts, and at the Darmstadt Internationales Ferienkurse 1996. Prior to establishing Los Angeles River Records in 2000, he founded and directed Wires Center for New & Experimental Music (Los Angeles, 1991 to 2000), which presented concerts and festivals of new music.