Nicholas Ma is a pianist-composer whose music explores a dialogue between rhythmic vitality, playfulness, and contemplative rigor. Some of his recent accolades include two SOCAN Foundation Young Composer Awards, McGill’s Luba Zuk Piano Duo Composition Competition Prize, commissions from Esprit Orchestra and the Coalition for Music Education in Canada, and a composer-in-residence position with McGill's Schulich Singers.
His primary teachers include Marina Mdivani for piano and Eliot Britton, Melissa Hui, Jean Lesage, and Chris Paul Harman for composition. Some of his other activities include serving as the Vice-President of the McGill Association of Student Composers, being selected for programs such as Salastina's Sounds Promising Young Composers Program and the Canadian Composers Orchestra's Digital Generations Program, and being the composer for the 2022/23 Music Monday program—an event where his commissioned work was sung by hundreds of thousands of children and youth in schools and communities across Canada.
Nicholas holds a Bachelor’s degree from McGill University, where he double-majored in Piano Performance and Composition with a minor in Music Theory. He is currently pursuing a Master’s in Composition at McGill with a full scholarship.
