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Emmy Award-winning composer Steve Heitzeg (b. 1959) is known for his music written in celebration of the natural world, with evocative and lyrical scores frequently including naturally-found instruments, such as stones, birch bark wind chimes and sea glass shards. An advocate for the "peaceful coexistence of all species through music," Heitzeg has written more than 100 works, including compositions for orchestra, chorus, chamber ensemble and PBS films.

Named "Composer of the Year" at the 2000 Minnesota Music Awards and the recipient of a 2005 Bush Foundation Fellowship, Heitzeg has amassed a large body of compositions that address social and environmental issues with vision and compassion in such works as Aqua (Hommage à Jacques-Yves Cousteau), Blessed Are the Peacemakers, Blue Liberty, Elegy on Water, Endangered, Madeline Island: Sanctuary in Blue, Nobel Symphony, Symphony to the Prairie Farm, Voice of the Everglades (Tribute to Marjory Stoneman Douglas) and Wounded Fields.

His music has been commissioned or performed by the Atlanta Symphony, Auckland Philharmonia, Chanticleer, Dale Warland Singers, Detroit Symphony, Houston Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, members of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and VocalEssence, among others. Marin Alsop, Philip Brunelle, William Eddins, JoAnn Falletta, Giancarlo Guerrero, Jahja Ling, Christopher Seaman, Joseph Silverstein, Osmo Vänskä and Dale Warland are among the distinguished conductors who have led his works.

Heitzeg's debut recording earthworks: music in honor of nature was released in April 1998. In 2000, he received a regional Emmy for his original score for he public television documentary Death of the Dream: Farmhouses in the Heartland and in 2004 his Voice of the Everglades was released on CD featuring the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra. Heitzeg attracted attention with his score for PBS' A Marriage: Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz (starring Jane Alexander) in 1991 and for the award-winning children's video On the Day You Were Born, released by the Minnesota Orchestra in 1996.

The recipient of a 2001 McKnight Fellowhip, Heitzeg has also received grants from the American Composers Forum, Meet the Composer, and the Jerome Foundation. In addition to concert and film music, Heitzeg composes ecoscores (intimate works with inventive musical syntax) that seek to honor the beauty and rights of nature. Two of these works, Peace March for Paul and Sheila Wellstone and American Symphony (Unfinished) are in the permanent collection of Minneapolis' Weisman Art Museum.

Upcoming projects include a ballet with James Sewell Ballet and a string quartet for the Daedalus Quartet, both projects funded through a 2005 Bush Foundation Fellowship.

Heitzeg received his Ph.D in music composition from the University of Minnesota, studying with Dominick Argento, and completed undergraduate work at Gustavus Adolphus College. Born and raised on a dairy farm in southern Minnesota, Heitzeg now lives in Saint Paul with his wife Gwendolyn, daughter Zadie and Weimaraner Heddy.