Steve Heitzeg

Steve Heitzeg (born October 15, 1959) is an American composer whose works include compositions for orchestra, chorus, chamber ensemble, ballet, and film.

He is well known for themes of environmentalism and social justice in his work, which often incorporates unusual instrumentation with ecological or thematic resonance to the work at hand, such as stones, driftwood, and whale bones.

He has written more than 150 compositions since the late 1970s, including the award-winning On the Day You Were Born, his 2001 Nobel Symphony, and soundtracks including the PBS films Death of the Dream (which won an Upper Midwest Emmy Award) and A Marriage: Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz.

Heitzeg's music has been performed by orchestras and ensembles across the US and Europe, including the Minnesota Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Houston Symphony, Des Moines Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Auckland Philharmonia, Florida Orchestra, Dale Warland Singers, VocalEssence and James Sewell Ballet.

His works have been performed by conductors including Marin Alsop, Philip Brunelle, Michael Butterman, William Eddins, JoAnn Falletta, Joseph Giunta, Giancarlo Guerrero, Sarah Hicks, Jahja Ling, Lawrence Renes, Christopher Seaman, Mischa Santora, André Raphel Smith, Joseph Silverstein, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Osmo Vänskä and Dale Warland.

Heitzeg was born in Albert Lea, Minnesota, and grew up on a dairy farm near the small town of Kiester.

In high school, he played trombone in marching band, guitar in jazz band, and sang in the choir.

He also wrote a rock opera, P.S., based on the story of the prodigal son, during his senior year.

After graduating from Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, in 1982, he earned his PhD in musical composition at the University of Minnesota in 1986, studying under Dominick Argento and Eric Stokes.

His doctoral work was the 1985 composition Nine Surrealist Studies (After Salvador Dali), inspired by the Spanish surrealist painter, which was premiered in 1987 by the Florida Orchestra.

Kurt Loft of the Tampa Tribune praised the work, calling Heitzeg "a serious composer with much to say" and adding that Nine Surrealist Studies "suggests the enigma of time and the irrational dream world that so fascinated the famed Spanish painter."

Writing about Heitzeg's career, Kurt Loft of the Tampa Tribune wrote that "Heitzeg is remarkably prolific. His body of work includes significant orchestra and chamber pieces, opera, works for chorus and film scores. His compositions reflect a concern for environmental issues, history, art and literature."

Terry Blain of the Minneapolis Star Tribune has called Heitzeg "renowned for the ecological agenda of his music, and its sense of social conscience."

Heitzeg's belief in environmentalism and pacifism is a fundamental cornerstone of his work, with themes of social justice, ecology, and the interconnectedness of humans and the Earth interweaving in almost all his more than 150 creations.

In 1988, Heitzeg's three-movement orchestral tribute to Vice President Hubert Humphrey, A Voice Remembered, was performed by the Civic Orchestra of Minneapolis; WCCO-TV newscaster Dave Moore read from Humphrey's speeches and writing.

Star Tribune classical music critic Michael Anthony praised the work as "neo-Romantic, emotive, heart-on-sleeve music" that "evokes the sound and idiom of Aaron Copland's work, especially in the outer movements. ... In its brevity and tight construction, it's an effective work."

Endangered (Written in Honor of All Turtles and Tortoises), a 10-minute work for solo cello, debuted in Minneapolis in 1990.

The piece uses a repeated theme around the notes E-D-A-G, shorthand for "endangered", and was inspired by the similar shapes of a cello and Galapagos tortoise.

The Star Tribune's Michael Anthony called it "an odd and touching work in nine brief movements held together by a lush, elegiac theme."

The Dale Warland Singers premiered Heitzeg's Christmas choral work little tree, based on the poem by e.e. cummings, in 1990.

Two compositions by Heitzeg, Flower of the Earth and Endangered, were used as the score for the 1991 PBS American Playhouse film A Marriage: Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, starring Jane Alexander and Christopher Plummer.

Heitzeg described his philosophy in a 1993 interview with the Arizona Daily Star: "To write about nature and to include natural instruments is my mission. By doing that I hope to have people realize our relationship to nature, and have them respect other lives. And when that happens, peace is more possible, be it world peace or inner peace."

He has taken direct inspiration from the natural world in works such as Makhato Wakpa (Blue Earth River), Voice of the Everglades, and Endangered (Written in Honor of All Turtles and Tortoises).

Heitzeg has also been inspired by artists of many different disciplines, having devoted works to painters Georgia O'Keeffe and Salvador Dali, composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, poet Pablo Neruda, and others.

Themes of human rights and social justice are at the forefront of works such as his Nobel Symphony, Peace March for Paul and Sheila Wellstone, and the recent work ''How Many Breaths?

(In Memory of George Floyd and Countless Others)''.

His music often features natural instruments, such as stones, fallen tree branches, and sea glass shards.

Heitzeg told one interviewer that he sees his use of natural materials as instruments as "a symbolic metaphor for the fact that we're all connected and not separate from nature. All instruments come from nature."

He has also used other kinds of found objects as instruments to highlight thematic resonances in a particular piece, such as plowshares and olive branches in his Nobel Symphony, and Ford Mustang hubcaps and horseshoes in Mustang (in Tribute to Wild Horses and Burros).

As part of his artistic commitment to environmental issues, Heitzeg writes what he calls "ecoscores", which are hand-drawn graphics that combine musical notation and visual art, and seek to reinforce Heitzeg's themes of Earth and pacifism.

Each ecoscore is hand-drawn on recycled paper.

Two ecoscores, Peace March for Paul and Sheila Wellstone and American Symphony (Unfinished), are in the permanent collection of the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis.

The company later recorded the song for their 1995 album December Stillness.

Described by John Shulson of the Newport News, Virginia, Daily Press as "a charming lullaby-like work of touching imagery", little tree has become one of Heitzeg's most frequently performed works.

Bruce Hodges of MusicWeb International called the 2004 VocalEssence performance of Heitzeg's Nobel Symphony one of the best concerts of that year, calling it "a work that continues to linger in the mind" and praising its "eloquent reimagining" of a text by Chilean poet-diplomat Pablo Neruda.

Michael Fleming of the St. Paul Pioneer Press said that "Heitzeg's compositions, whether for orchestra, solo instrument or voice, are colorful and superbly crafted. Behind each lies a story or idea, but the music stands by itself."

Writing for the Star Tribune, Terry Blain called Heitzeg's American Nomad "an unashamedly accessible and emotional piece, packed with catchy tunes and pin-sharp evocations of both landscape and urban environments. Its teeming generosity of spirit and openness to new experiences now feel painfully at odds with our more inward-looking, mean-spirited present and seem almost to rebuke it."

Nicholas Tawa, author of the 2009 book The Great American Symphony, singled out Heitzeg as part of "a new crop of American composers who find value in writing symphonies."

Ecology Symphony, written for the 40th anniversary of Earth Day in 2010, dedicated each of its movements to a different endangered species including the leatherback turtle, Javan rhinoceros, and mountain gorilla.

Heitzeg's work has been positively reviewed by many critics.