Bio
The music of Alex Heppelmann has been performed on the concert stage throughout the United States. His music explores a wide range of genres and styles, from pieces for chamber and large ensembles, to works for theatre, opera, film, and jazz. He was the recipient of the 2011 Marjorie Jane Brewster Memorial Scholarship in Music, the 2017 Roy Crane Award in the Performing Arts, the University of Texas Graduate Continuing Fellowship from 2016-2017, and was a finalist for the 2014 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards.
Recent commissions include Three Songs of Christina Rossetti (2020) for soprano Rachel Copeland, Spires (2020) for saxophonist Andrew Harrison, and an unfinished solo percussion and electronics piece for Danielle Gonzalez. Alex completed a D.M.A. in music composition from the University of Texas at Austin, where his doctoral dissertation Cry Wolf (2017), an opera for young audiences, was premiered at the Cohen New Works Festival. He holds additional degrees from the University of Texas (M.Music), and The Pennsylvania State University (B.Music). He was most recently the interim instructor in music composition at Penn State University from 2018-2019, where he taught courses in electronic music, film and video game music, orchestration, studio recording, and maintained a composition studio of undergraduate composers.
Composer, Teacher, Performer
As a teacher, Alex Heppelmann teaches many styles: contemporary classical, film, video game, jazz, song-writing, electronic, arranging and much more.
He has five years of teaching experience, of which two were as an instructor of music composition at Penn State University. There he taught courses on orchestration, electronic music, recording technology, film and video game scoring, and maintained a studio of undergraduate composers. In addition, Alex has taught courses on music theory and aural skills.
Alex holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition degree, and has nearly two decades of experience as a composer, performer, and arranger.
Alex Heppelmann has performed since a young age on saxophone and piano, playing music from a large variety of genres, such as classical, jazz, contemporary, and more. He is highly skilled at improvising in numerous genres.
Events/News Highlights
Songs set to text by Christina Rossetti, commissioned by and written for soprano, Rachel Copeland, 2020. Click here to visit Rachel's website.
Rachel Copeland |
Coloratura Soprano
Ongoing project and collaboration with percussionist, Danielle Gonzalez, as part of her Natural Beauty series. Click here to visit Danielle's website.
Danielle Gonzalez |
Percussionist
Commissioned work for saxophonist, Andrew Harrison, to be performed at NASA Convention in Arizona March, 2020 (delayed due to pandemic). Click here to visit Andrew's website.
Andrew Harrison |
Saxophonist
Downloadable CV (PDF) below.
To view Alex Heppelmann's full CV, including a list of compositions, performances, teaching and work experience, etc., download the file below (will open in a new window).
Click for CV Download