All Music for Life

Our Team

Founded in 2022 by brothers Aaron and Kenneth Ma.

Founded in 2022 by brothers Aaron and Kenneth Ma, All Music for Life brings together young musicians from across the Bay Area.

Our members are students from middle schools and high schools across the Bay Area and universities including Stanford, UCLA, Northwestern, Cornell, and more.

Leadership

Our founders

Aaron Ma, Co-Founder and Executive Director
Co-Founder & Executive Director
Aaron Ma

Violinist and a junior at The Harker School. Concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and winner of the 2024-25 SFSYO Concerto Competition, with a solo debut at Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in November 2025.

Kenneth Ma, Co-Founder
Co-Founder
Kenneth Ma

Cellist and a student at Northwestern University. A multi-award winner, he organizes performances and events for young musicians throughout the Bay Area.

Mason Lee, Operations Director
Operations Director
Mason Lee

Korean American violist and a freshman at Stanford University. Former principal violist of the MSM Precollege Philharmonic and assistant principal of the Grammy-winning New York Youth Symphony, he toured with Carnegie Hall's National Youth Orchestra of the USA in 2025 and 2026.

Co-Founder & Executive Director
Aaron Ma

Aaron Ma, 16, is currently a junior at the Harker School. He began his musical journey at the age of three studying piano with his mother, pianist Hang Li, and started violin at age five with Zhao Wei. From 2019 to 2022, he studied piano with William Wellborn at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) Pre-College Division. Aaron currently studies violin with Zhao Wei at SFCM, receives mentorship from Ian Swensen, and is coached by David Chernyavsky of the San Francisco Symphony. He has been a member of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra since 2022, and now serves as its concertmaster.

Ma has earned top prizes in numerous competitions. Most notably, he was the winner of the 2024–25 San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition, making his solo debut at Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in November 2025. He is also the First Prize winner of the Central Oregon Symphony Young Artist Competition, and will appear as soloist with the orchestra in Bend, Oregon in February 2026. In addition, he won First Prize at the 2023 Pacific Musical Society & Foundation Annual Competition, among many others.

Aaron has participated in masterclasses with distinguished violinists including Arnaud Sussman, Simon James, and Alexander Barantschik. His chamber music training has included coaching by the Alexander String Quartet, Telegraph Quartet, Calidore String Quartet, Ying Quartet, and Trio Karenine. He was a member of Young Chamber Musicians for the 2024–2025 season as the violinist of the Mariposa Trio.

In the summer of 2025, Ma was invited to the Young Artist Institute of Chamber Music Northwest and toured East Asia with the National Youth Orchestra of the United States, performing alongside Ray Chen, Clara-Jumi Kang, and under the direction of Gianandrea Noseda. During the summer of 2024, he studied with Gerardo Ribeiro at the Meadowmount School of Music. In the summer of 2023, he participated in Music@Menlo and the Bowdoin International Music Festival, where he studied with Ayano Ninomiya of the New England Conservatory.

Operations Director
Mason Lee

Mason Lee, 17, is a Korean American violist and a former student of Sheila Browne and Karen Ritscher at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege. He was principal violist for the MSM Precollege Philharmonic Orchestra and assistant principal for the Grammy-winning New York Youth Symphony. He toured with Carnegie Hall's National Youth Orchestra of the United States in the summers of 2025 and 2026.

Mason is a 2026 and 2025 YoungArts National Competition winner in Classical Music/Viola and was a semi-finalist in the 2025 Johansen International Competition. He recently won the 2025 MSM Precollege Philharmonic Concerto Competition, becoming the first violist to win in over a decade. He has participated in workshops and masterclasses with violists including Scott Dickinson, Carol Rodland, Jeffery Irvine, Hsin-Yun Huang, and Molly Carr.

A finalist in the American Viola Society Festival Solo Competition, Mason has won first prize at the VIVO International, Miclot International, Prima Volta, American Protégé International, and AMTL New York Young Performers competitions, among others. He has been featured as a soloist at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall and Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center, and has performed at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, Neidorff-Karpati Hall at the Manhattan School of Music, the United Palace Theater, and concert halls across Asia. He is currently a freshman at Stanford University.