Sandy Nordahl

Sandy Nordahl currently serves as Technical Director and Performance Facilities Manager for the UNI School of Music. He also serves as an adjunct instructor in Music Technology, Audio for Theatre, and Electronic Music Composition.

Before joining the School of Music staff in 2021, Sandy served as Technical Director of the Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center for over 20 years. In this role, Sandy directed the technical staffing and operations for the 1,600-seat mainstage performance center, which presented approximately 250 events per year. During his time with the Gallagher Bluedorn, he worked with legendary artists and productions including B.B. King, Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer, Cats, Miss Saigon, Blue Man Group, Bill Cosby, Stephan Lang, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and Bonnie Raitt. Sandy oversaw the redesign and replacement of the facility’s audio, video and lighting systems, managing budgets that totaled close to $800,000 in grant funding.

Nordahl holds a Master of Music degree from the University of Oklahoma. His Thesis, Three Basic Elements, a work for video and electronic music, was the first ever electronic thesis accepted by the graduate college as a final document. Sandy received a scholarship in composition at the University of Oklahoma. In the summer of 1998, Sandy studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen in Kuerten, Germany. In 2012, Sandy attended the CNMAT Max workshop, a weeklong residency studying the software package MAX/MSP. 

Outside of academia, Sandy is a founding member of Data Stream, an electro-acoustic music ensemble with three compact disc releases. Data Stream has performed throughout the Midwest at such venues as New Genre Festival in Tulsa, OK, University of St. Louis, Oklahoma State University, Hearst Center for the Arts, Valley City State University, North Dakota, and St. Olaf College Northfield, MN.

Sandy has created video works to accompany live orchestral music, written reviews of music releases for Computer Music Journal, and is an active performer and composer on the UNI campus and throughout the United States.