Nicholas Maw (1935-2009) was a British composer. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London from 1955 to 1958 and with Nadia Boulanger in Paris from 1958 to 1959. As a professor of composition, he taught at the Yale School of Music (1984-1985, 1989), Bard College (1990-1999), and the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University (1998-2008).

Many of Maw's compositions blended romanticism with twentieth-century atonality. Major works include Scenes and Arias (1962, rev. 1966), the large-scale symphonic work Odyssey (1972-1987), and his Violin Concerto (1993). Maw's opera Sophie's Choice, for which the composer wrote his own libretto based on the novel by William Styron, premiered in 2002 at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, under the direction of Simon Rattle. An American premiere by the Washington National Opera was given in 2006 with Marin Alsop conducting.