Rare Spark Lessons

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.