The view from the top: Music alumna Heidi Joosten returns

Occasionally, those visitors are fellow Blugolds, music alumni eager to come give back to the program that launched their careers. And the trifecta of these visits may well be the alumni guests who come back to share and perform one of their original works of music with students — a special full-circle moment for everyone involved.

Last month, Chicago, Illinois-based composer, music director, conductor and performer Heidi Joosten, a UW-Eau Claire alumna, returned to campus in such a visit. Joosten came back to accompany a Pablo Center at the Confluence event featuring one of her compositions, jointly performed by the UW-Eau Claire Symphonic Choir, a Blugold brass quintet and the Red Cedar Choir from UW-Eau Claire – Barron County. 

“Commissioned by these ensembles for this instrumentation, I created a new arrangement of my 2014 composition ‘Gaudete Omnes’ for this collaboration, one that was expanded from its original piano accompaniment to include brass,” says Joosten, who accompanied the performance on piano. 

Celebrated musician returns to her roots

Joosten, who grew up in Cameron, is a 2013 graduate in music composition who later completed her master’s degree in music composition from Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois, and for the last decade has been taking the musical theater world by storm.

In the last five years, Joosten has garnered much recognition across multiple avenues of the music scene, both nationally and internationally. Recent successes include over 100 music director, orchestrator and associate conductor credits. A highlight of these was associate conducting and score supervising “Barbie: Live in Concert” performed at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California, in summer 2024. 

She also served as the orchestrator and arranger for the national tour of Jim Henson’s “Labyrinth” and has been conducting the sold-out national tour of “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” She has more live film and orchestral events on the calendar for 2025. 

Among her many industry awards, in 2024 Joosten became just the second woman ever to receive a Joseph Jefferson Award for outstanding music direction in Chicago with her work on the Stephen Sondheim musical “Assassins.”

A collaboration that benefits all involved

Joosten’s music has been performed by UWEC ensembles several times before this most recent collaboration, but she says that it is a thrill and an honor each time, moments that she doubts her 18-year-old self could have begun to comprehend.

“I think I would have been completely shocked to get a glimpse of this in my future,” she says. “It would have been so exciting to hear that something that only lived inside my brain would someday live inside of others for a little bit of time as a beautiful, shared experience. I’ve been very lucky.”

For the choral and instrumental students involved, the chance to hone their skills and professionalism as musicians with a talent like Joosten is partly why they chose this program to pursue their passions for music, according to music education senior Liam Casey.

“I play the trombone in the brass quintet that joined this new arrangement of Joosten’s piece,” says the Eden Prairie, Minnesota, native.

“In a collaboration like this one, there are so many moving parts, groups of people coming together to make this thing happen. It really opens the door to professional music for us as students — there is no time to waste in rehearsal, we’re all pushed to prepare, know our parts and arrive ready to work.

“We all want to maintain the great reputation that Blugolds have, a strong image of high-level professionalism,” Casey says.

Dr. Christopher McGinley, assistant professor of music, helped coordinate this collaboration with the Red Cedar Choir from the UW-Eau Claire – Barron County campus, under the direction of Joosten’s mother, Elizabeth Joosten.

“The nice thing about a commissioned revision to Heidi’s music like this project brought about is that ultimately it’s helping her more widely share her music,” McGinley says.

“This piece ‘Gaudete Omnes’ now has multiple versions that schools or programs of different sizes can choose to play. Just the piano arrangement, for instance; just choral or the full version with brass. That’s a benefit to everyone involved.”

For Elizabeth Joosten, being part of her daughter’s career success in this tangible way has been a proud moment.

“As the Red Cedar director, it has been such a privilege and joy to program and perform Heidi’s music and to see her achieve such great artistry in both her music and her professional skills,”  Elizabeth Joosten says. “The UWEC students who share in Heidi’s accomplishments will hopefully be inspired in their own journey to success.”