Natalie Roeder -  Composer for Film, Theatre & Media. Music Producer. 

Lecturer in  Artificial Intelligence for Music & Audio

Natalie Röder (also known as Natalie Roeder) is a German composer and music producer. Her artistic work primarily encompasses film music, theatre composition, media and radio-play music, as well as autonomous music and work within the metal scene.

Life and Education
Röder learned to play the violin and piano during her childhood and began improvising on the piano and composing her own pieces at an early age.
She later pursued a comprehensive and international musical education. She initially studied music theory at Barvinsky Music Applied College in Drohobych. As a brief intermediate stage in her education, she studied the fundamentals of music production and working with Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) at Musicube Akademie, Bonn. At Berklee College of Music, she gained knowledge about the role of artificial intelligence in music and audio, as well as the opportunities and risks of AI in music composition and the music industry.
She completed her academic education with a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Composition for Film and Theatre at ArtEZ University of the Arts in Arnhem, Netherlands.
Through this education, her current productions cover the entire music and audio production chain – from composition and MIDI mock-up orchestration to recording, mixing, and mastering.

Work and Artistic Practice
Until 2015, Röder's compositional work focused primarily on compositions for various children's and youth theatre productions, as well as composition and arrangement for her own metal project, Mourning Divine, founded in 2009. Between 2008 and 2017, she composed music for eight theatre productions for the children's and youth theatre of FWS Hof, including Der Kreidekreis, Die Welle, Herr der Diebe, Die rote Zora, and others.
During this period, she also created three studio albums or releases featuring compositions for Mourning Divine: 2012: The Dragon King (EP), 2012: Lost at the End of the World (studio album), and 2015: Death does no deal (studio album). All three releases were partially sponsored by the Wacken Foundation.
Following a serious personal tragedy, Röder withdrew from the public eye with her Mourning Divine project from 2015 onwards.
From 2017 onwards, her compositional focus shifted increasingly towards film and media music, radio-play music, and autonomous concert music. Between 2019 and 2025, Röder composed music for two further youth theatre productions, Macbeth (2019) and The Boat People Opera (2023), and partially composed the music for Molière's Le Malade imaginaire (2025) for the FWS Jena amateur theatre.
By 2026, she had regularly created works for piano, violin, string quartet, orchestra, and choir, including Piano Ballad No. 1 (2023) and Piano Ballad 2 (2024), the string quartet Charlie (2021), Allegoria for violin and piano and Transformation for piano (both 2024), as well as Tributum Magistris Polyphoniae – Fuge I and Fuge II.
In 2022, she also composed the music for the radio-play comedy Graf Redlich und die heilige Katharina by Dr. Julian Köck.
In 2024, following a long hiatus, Röder released another album with Mourning Divine, Be Free – No More Masters. In addition to composing the music, she wrote most of the lyrics and was involved in a substantial part of the album's production.
During this period, she also composed music for several short films, including Birthday Girl (directed by Genaro Navarro-Rodriguez, Los Angeles, USA, 2022), Beiß doch ins Gras (short film by the FWS Jena youth group, 2022), Childhood Reminiscence (documentary, ArtEZ Connecting the Dots, Netherlands, 2024), for which she handled the complete production process, from recording and editing the audiovisual material to composition, scoring, and music production, as well as Das ist unsere Schule (a short film produced in collaboration with JenaTV, 2025).
Röder has also been involved in children's and youth work for more than 20 years. Throughout her career as a music educator, she has founded and directed several children's and youth orchestras, music groups, and recorder ensembles.
This work has also resulted in compositions for children's and youth orchestras, some of which became part of the Ornithologisches Kinderalbum, scheduled for publication through BoD Verlag in 2027.
In 2026, she wrote the children's book Tokkie, der kleine Specht and produced the accompanying radio play. Publication of both works is planned for 2027.

Research and Lecturing
Röder engages extensively with the evolution of music production in the digital age. One focus of her work is the intersection between human creativity and emerging technologies. From 2025 onwards, she taught the subject “Composing alongside Artificial Intelligence” at ArtEZ University of the Arts in the Netherlands, focusing on AI-based tools and models for contemporary and efficient music production.
Another area of her work is the development and exploration of Autonomous-Adaptive Conceptual Music (AACM) and the role of artificial intelligence within this emerging field of music.

Selected Works

Theatre
• 2008–2017: Compositions for various children's and youth theatre productions, including:
o Der Kreidekreis
o Die Welle
o Herr der Diebe
o Der Kirschgarten
o Krabat
o Die rote Zora
o Ist Erbe Schicksal?
• 2019: Macbeth
• 2023: The Boat People Opera
• 2025: Le Malade imaginaire (after Molière)

Radio Plays
• 2022: Graf Redlich und die heilige Katharina (author: Dr. Julian Köck) – original music
• 2026: Tokkie, der kleine Specht

Concert and Piano Music
• 2018: Sehnsucht nach Freiheit for violin and piano
• 2018: Nucleation Damage for violin and piano
• 2021: Charlie – composition for string quartet (Matangi Quartet, Netherlands)
• 2022: The Fox – composition for the Ereprijs Orchestra (De Ereprijs, Netherlands)
• 2023: Piano Ballad No. 1 – piano music
• 2023: Tributum Magistris Polyphoniae – Fuge I (piano music)
• 2024: Tributum Magistris Polyphoniae – Fuge II (piano music)
• 2024: Piano Ballad 2 – piano music
• 2024: Transformation – concert work
• 2024: Allegoria – violin and piano
• 2026: Ornithologisches Kinderalbum

Film
• 2022: Birthday Girl (short film, Los Angeles)
• 2022: Beiß doch ins Gras (short film)
• 2024: Childhood Reminiscence (documentary, Netherlands)
• 2025: Das ist unsere Schule (short film in collaboration with JenaTV)

Band Productions with Mourning Divine
Composition, Arrangement

• 2012: The Dragon King Trilogy (EP)
Tracks:
• Intro
• The Gates of Oblivion
• Interlude
• Quest of the Dragon King
• The Final Sacrifice

• 2012: Lost at the End of the World (studio album)
Tracks:
• Ice Symphony
• Burn the Witch
• Open Your Eyes
• Angel of Light
• Walking on the Other Side
• Crystal Eyes
• Fly My Soul
• The Gates of Oblivion
• Quest of the Dragon King
• The Final Sacrifice (Edit)

 2015: Death does no deal (studio album)
Tracks:
• Leaving Brightness
• Death Does No Deal
• So Called Friends
• Shine My Star
• Sopor
• Rainbow Child
• When the World Ends
• King of the Underworld
• Distant Traveler

2024: Be Free – No More Masters
Tracks:
• Overture Circle of Life
• Demons of the Night
• Networked
• Keep Your Place in My Heart
• No More Masters
• Interlude Knights Last Journey
• Be Free
• The Final
• Keep Your Place in My Heart

Singles
• 2021: The Outlaw
• 2021: Down the Road
• 2021: Betty's Flamenco

Early Orchestral Works
• 2012: Goddess Persephone
• 2013: Tagebuch der Einsamkeit
• 2017: Caelum tuum est – II
• 2018: Julen
• 2020: The Rise of Thousands Souls

Choral and Vocal Works
• 2017: Sommers Ende
• 2018: Caelum tuum est I – Pater dimitte nobis
• 2018: Ama Me
• 2018: So geh hin und iss dein Brot mit Freuden
• 2023: Spätsommer (after Hesse)
• 2024: Kanon Guter Rat
• 2025: Duett aus der Stegreifoper (Molière)

Books
• Tokkie, der kleine Specht

Sheet Music
• Ornithologisches Kinderalbum
• Piano Ballad 1 and 2
• Charlie
• Allegoria
• Forever June

Web Links
• Homepage of Natalie Röder: www.pianodreams.de
• Natalie Röder on SoundCloud
• Instagram: @natalie_roeder_music
• Homepage of Mourning Divine: www.mourning-divine.com

SWR Nachtcafé

"Music is my life"

Guests: Natalie Roeder, Wolfgang Niedecken, Konstantin Wecker, Stefan Schmidt, Prof. Dr. Stefan Kölsch, Rami Basisah, Solomia Lukyanets