GRACE MA
Composer - Pianist
Grace Ma has received numerous accolades for her versatile, eclectic, and imaginative compositions. Her repertoire includes chamber, solo-instrumental, electronic, orchestral, and vocal works, as well as film music.
In 2018, Grace had her SXSW debut as composer to “A Woman Loves,” a film directed by local Austin filmmaker Vanessa Uhlig. She took part in the Connecticut Summerfest, where she was contracted to compose and premiere a new work with the award-winning Duo Alterity. She was featured in the inaugural TURN UP concert in Austin, TX, an initiative to highlight female-identified composers, performers, and media artists. Grace is winner of the 2017 Duino Composition Prize at the International Music Festival of the Adriatic in Italy, and is recently recorded by Invoke string quartet sponsored by Austin-based non-profit Golden Hornet.
Her other major concert features include twice at the “Sound in Sculpture” production as part of the Fusebox Festival in Austin, TX (2017 & 2018); Ears, Eyes, and Feet series at the University of Texas at Austin (2017); Danse, Lhasa, Danse at the Chan Centre in Vancouver, BC (2014); Vancouver Pro Musica's Further Series Electroacoustics Concert (2014); and twice at the West Coast Student Composers’ Symposium co-hosted by the University of British Columbia, University of Victoria, and Simon Fraser University (2014 & 2015). She was participant twice at the Atlantic Music Festival in Waterville, ME (2014 & 2016), and the Orford Academy in Orford, QC (2016).
In 2014, Grace's orchestral work was read by the Victoria Symphony under Maestra Tania Miller, four years after her orchestral debut with the same group as piano soloist in front of 40,000 spectators at Victoria, BC's Inner Harbour.
She holds a master’s in composition degree from the University of Texas at Austin (2017), a bachelor’s in composition degree from the University of British Columbia (2015), and is an Associate of the Royal Conservatory of Toronto in piano performance (2010).
An emerging music scholar, Grace has presented research on 18th century music criticism and tonal-formal analysis of select keyboard pieces by Bach at international conferences in the Netherlands (2013) and the UK (2014) respectively.