Nathan Heidelberger is a composer of diverse instrumental and vocal music. His pieces range in character from the uncannily beautiful to the unrelentingly didactic.
Heidelberger received his PhD, with distinction, from the University at Buffalo. He also holds undergraduate degrees in Composition and English from Oberlin College and Conservatory, where he was awarded the Walter E. Aschaffenburg Composition Prize.
Heidelberger was a composition fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in the summer of 2013 and at the Aspen Music Festival in the summer of 2012. He has also participated in the Copland House CULTIVATE Institute, June in Buffalo, and a residency at the Banff Centre. His music has been performed by such groups as Ensemble Linea, the New York New Music Ensemble, the New Fromm Players, the Nouveau Classical Project, the Slee Sinfonietta, and chamber musicians from the New York Philharmonic. As the first composer-in-residence for the Netherlands-based Oerknal Ensemble, Heidelberger was the subject of their Lunatics portrait concert in June 2014. In 2015, he was granted a Special Award from the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music to support the composition of a new solo piece for pianist Daniel Walden, and he was commissioned by the San Francisco-based ensemble Wild Rumpus to write a new quartet for soprano, bass clarinet, trombone, and contrabass.