Heyder, Nate

Nathaniel Heyder is a composer and violinist based in Las Vegas, Nevada. He has attended festivals such as Luzerne Music Center, the National Symphony Orchestra Summer Music Institute, the Atlantic Music Festival, and Mostly Modern Music Festival. His compositions have received recognition including the YoungArts Merit Award (2017), the Neil Rabaut Memorial Composition Scholarship from the Interlochen Arts Academy, the 2017 NextNotes High School Composition Competition award presented by the American Composers Forum, Honorable Mention in the Webster University CMS Young Composers Challenge, Emerging Composer in the 2020 Division 2 Young Composer Competition by Tribeca New Music, and selection in the 2021 Nief-Norf Summer Festival International Call for Scores.

His music has been performed by members of The Cleveland Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra. Heyder’s orchestral work Iterations was premiered by the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra under JoAnn Falletta. He also had orchestral premieres with the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in 2024 as the winner of their Emerging Black Composers Award, and with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra in 2025. Heyder received the Donald Erb Scholarship in Composition and the Gertrude E. Freeman and Lisa Freeman Roberts Memorial Fund from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he completed his undergraduate studies with Keith Fitch. He earned his master’s degree at The Juilliard School, studying with Andrew Norman.