Mike von der Nahmer

Biography

Mike von der Nahmer is a composer, sound researcher, music psychotherapist and creator and artistic director of MuTaDra (Music – Theater – Drama) home of transformative music theater. His American/German/Cuban heritage influences the questions of identity, complexity, and transcendent connection that shape his music. He has written over 30 works for stage and over 100 works for concert and film; many have received national/international awards and been performed around the world. 
 
Credentials 
Mike holds a B.A. in composition from the University of Music and Performing Arts, Munich. In May 2015, he received an M.F.A. in Musical Theater Writing from New York University, where he held a Tisch School of the Arts Departmental Fellowship and studied with composers Mel Marvin, Fred Carl and Randall Eng. He also studied Film Scoring at UCLA where he studied with Lee Sanders and Craig Stuart Garfinkle. He also holds an M.A. in Music Therapy from the University of Augsburg and a certificate in Music-Imaginative Pain Treatment (music therapy treatment for patients with chronic pain) from the Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences, Germany. He is currently pursuing a PhD at the German Aerospace Center titled "Underscoring Aircraft Ballets – Sonifying Air Traffic Control Data to heighten Situational Awareness – A Composer’s Perspective". 
 
Other Influences
Furthermore, he studied traditional Chinese music with composer Wang Ai Qun. Beyond his formal training, he was influenced by his father, an artist, gemstones specialist and healer who was later a Hindu priest; by traditional forms of healing, fairytales and myth; and by traditional Jewish and Indian music. Mike’s work naturally connects western classical music with other musical forms.