Minnesota-based composer and harpist Amy Nam writes and performs music out of a desire to nourish her own sense of curiosity, as well as that of her listeners. Her musical output responds to the personal discoveries she makes from allowing her mind to roam laterally in undirected exploration of the world.           

Nam’s work Mimi’s Song was selected by the American Composers Orchestra for their June 2023 EarShot Readings in New York City. In January of 2024, the chamber ensemble keystring premiered Nam’s Desire Lines, for harp and two saxophones, commissioned with support from the American Harp Society Grants Program. In 2020, the Rochester, NY-based ensemble fivebyfive commissioned Nam’s work ...of breath and fire through the support of Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning program, and in the 2022-23 season, Nam completed a series of residencies with fivebyfive performing this work at universities around New York State.                                                      

Nam’s music has received awards from the BMI Foundation, the Eastman School of Music, and the Lyra Society, among others, and her music has been performed, recorded, and workshopped by ensembles including the Pacific Chamber Orchestra, M5 Mexican Brass, the Hats+Heels duo, and the Tennessee Valley Music Festival Orchestra.           

As a harpist, she won 2nd Prize in the Dutch Harp Festival World Harp Competition 2024. She has appeared as a soloist with the Vanderbilt University Orchestra, the McGill Contemporary Ensemble, the Sewanee Summer Music Festival Orchestra, the St. Croix Valley Orchestra, and the Luther College Symphony Orchestra.

Nam holds degrees from Vanderbilt University, where she graduated with first honors as the Blair School of Music’s Founder’s Medalist, McGill University, where she studied harp with Jennifer Swartz and composition with John Rea, and the Eastman School of Music, where she studied composition with David Liptak, Robert Morris, and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon.

Nam is on faculty teaching harp and composition at Luther College in Decorah, IA and at Lutheran Summer Music Academy & Festival. www.amynam.com