Sean Heim, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Music
Instructor of Music Theory/Composition

Born in Philadelphia in 1967, Sean Heim, began his first serious musical training in secondary school and soon after began studies in composition with Harold Oliver at Rowan University.  He then worked with Native American composer Louis W. Ballard, completed his Masters degree in composition with Chinary Ung at Arizona State University, and holds a Ph.D. from The University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.  Prior to Chapman, Sean has taught at Rutgers University, Rowan University, Gloucester County Community College, and the Settlement Music School.

The primary focus of Sean Heim's work as a composer has been to develop an imaginative personal language that strongly reflects the compositional techniques and aesthetic of his own western musical tradition as well as the distillation and infusion of philosophical ideas and musical elements found in numerous indigenous cultures. His work also reflects his deep interest in the visual arts and in recent years these fusions have developed to a level of greater aesthetic and technical abstraction.

Heim's music has been performed to critical acclaim throughout the United States and abroad by such distinguished performers as the California E.A.R. Unit, Topology, the Auros Group for New Music and the New York Miniature Ensemble. He has received awards and honors from such prestigious institutions as the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, the American Music Center, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, The American Composers Forum and the ASCAP Foundation Rudolf Nissim Prize.