Sean Heim, Ph.D.

Born in Philadelphia on 27th of January 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 where he worked with Philip Bracanin.  Sean has taught at Rowan University, Rutgers University, and the Settlement Music School.  He currently resides in Southern California and is Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Music Theory/Composition at Chapman University.

The primary focus of 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 cultures. His work also reflects his deep interest in the natural world, and in recent years these fusions have developed to a level of greater aesthetic and technical abstraction.

Sean Heim has received numerous prizes, awards, honors, and commissions 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, The ASCAP Foundation - including the Rudolf Nissim Prize, the Morton Gould Young Composers Award, and nine consecutive Plus Awards. He has also received a Resolution from the New Jersey State Senate and General Assembly in recognition of his artistic achievements. 

Sean’s music has been performed to critical acclaim throughout the United States and abroad by many distinguished performers and venues including: the California E.A.R. Unit, Piano Spheres, the Focus Festival at Juilliard, the Thailand International Composition Festival, inauthentica, Topology, the Auros Group for New Music, Perihelion, ensemble Green, the New York Miniaturist Ensemble, Fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center, Orange County Youth Symphony Orchestra (Composer in Residence 2006-07), and the Philharmonic of Southern New Jersey. His music is available on Capstone Records including his solo release with The California EAR Unit - the night-speech of plant and stone.

More information on Sean Heim may be found at: www.seanheim.com