Steve Heitzeg
Steve Heitzeg is an American composer whose works include compositions for orchestra, chorus, chamber ensemble, ballet, and film.
His work is well known for themes of environmentalism and social justice, and often incorporates unusual instrumentation with ecological or thematic resonance, 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 for films, including PBS's Death of the Dream 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, Joseph Silverstein, André Raphel Smith, Thomas Søndergård, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Osmo Vänskä, and Dale Warland.
Early life
Heitzeg was born in Albert Lea, Minnesota, and grew up on a dairy farm near the 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.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 dissertation was the 1985 composition Nine Surrealist Studies, 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."
Artistic philosophy and musical style
Kurt Loft of the Tampa Tribune wrote, "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 compositions. 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 , Voice of the Everglades, and Endangered . 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 How Many Breaths? .
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 .
Ecoscores
As part of his artistic commitment to environmental issues, Heitzeg writes what he calls "ecoscores", hand-drawn graphics that combine musical notation and visual art and seek to reinforce 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 , are in the permanent collection of the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis. 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.Critical reception
Heitzeg's work has been favorably reviewed by many critics. 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." 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 Pablo Neruda. Michael Fleming of the St. Paul Pioneer Press wrote, "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."Career
1980s and 1990s: ''A Marriage'', ''On the Day You Were Born'', and ''Aqua''
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 called the work "neo-Romantic, emotive, heart-on-sleeve music" that "evokes the sound and idiom of Aaron Copland's work, especially in the outer movements", adding, "In its brevity and tight construction, it's an effective work."Endangered , a 10-minute work for solo cello, debuted in Minneapolis in 1990. The piece uses a repeated theme with the notes E-D-A-G, shorthand for "endangered", and was inspired by the similar shapes of a cello and Galapagos tortoise. 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. The company later recorded the song on its 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.
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. Flower of the Earth was originally written in 1987 in homage to O'Keeffe, and devotes each of its four movements to a different O'Keeffe painting. Alexander, who co-produced the film, chose Heitzeg to write its score, and worked with him again repeatedly.
Heitzeg's choral work Litanies for the Living was premiered in 1992 in Minneapolis by the Westminster Festival Chorus and Minnetonka Choral Society. A meditation on peace between humans and nature, Litanies is set to text by poets Gary Snyder and Wendell Berry. Michael Anthony called it "effectively and skillfully composed" and "evocative... with a tone of reverence and loss."
Makhato Wakpa was premiered in 1992 by the Mankato Symphony Orchestra. The piece is inspired by the geography and history of the Blue Earth River, including the mass execution of 38 Native Americans after the Dakota War of 1862. The Arizona Daily Star called it "a work that fully integrates Heitzeg's ecological and cultural interests". It was subsequently performed by the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Marin Alsop conducting, in 1995.
The 1995 orchestral work Mustang pays tribute to the role of horses in American mythology, as well as their automotive descendants; instrumentation included Ford Mustang hubcaps and horseshoes used as percussive elements. Todd Epp of the Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Argus-Leader, reviewing a performance of the work by the South Dakota Symphony, said it "painted a vivid sound portrait of freedom, power, and the American West," and wrote that the hubcaps simultaneously served as "both a cymbal and a symbol."
In 1995, Heitzeg wrote the symphony On the Day You Were Born to accompany the bestselling children's book by Debra Frasier. The work was commissioned by the Minnesota Commissioning Club and debuted by the Minnesota Orchestra, with actress Jane Alexander as narrator, and subsequently released by the orchestra as an animated children's video on the NotesAlive! label. The Minnesota Orchestra restaged the piece with Maya Angelou as narrator in 2008. The symphony has been performed frequently by orchestras across the U.S. On the Day You Were Born won the American Library Association's Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Children's Video in 1997.
Heitzeg was commissioned in 1997 by Gustavus Adolphus College to write Blessed are the Peacemakers, a work for alto soloist, chorus, and orchestra that honored the 25th anniversary of the college's annual student-performed "Christmas in Christ Chapel" program. The work also honored five historic peacemakers: Martin Luther King, Hildegard von Bingen, St. Francis, Dag Hammarskjöld, and Raoul Wallenberg.
Heitzeg's debut album, Earthworks: Music in Honor of Nature, was released in 1998 on Innova Recordings. A collection of his chamber works, it includes performances by flutist Julia Bogorad, soprano Maria Jette, cellist Laura Sewell, the House of Hope Children's Choir, and Zeitgeist.
Aqua, a tribute to the oceans and the influential French explorer and environmentalist, was debuted in 1999 by the Virginia Symphony. In 2000, the game show Jeopardy! featured Heitzeg and Aqua as the subject of a Final Jeopardy question.