At age 23, Zev Malina has already established himself as an up-and-coming American composer. He has received several prestigious awards, including the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award in 2020, the National Young Composers’ Challenge in 2017 and 2018 (orchestral division,) and first prize in the Jazz/Ragtime category of the 12th Fidelio Piano Composition Competition. Zev’s music has been performed by the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, the Syracuse Orchestra, the Orlando Philharmonic, The Florida Orchestra, Market Square Concerts, and in December of 2024, his Fantasy for Cello and Double Bass, “Togetherness” was premiered in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. He has completed a Bachelor’s Degree in Music Composition at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, where he studied with Arthur Gottschalk, Richard Lavenda, Karim Al-Zand, and Anthony Brandt.

As a soloist, he has performed with the Oconee Performing Arts Society and Market Square Concerts, and he has played in the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra and the Lake Placid Sinfonietta as a member of the ensemble. He has also extensively served as music director and accompanist or pit pianist for various student theatre productions at Rice.