Nicholas O'Neill was born in Cheltenham in 1970, and currently lives in London, where he works as a composer, performer, conductor and lecturer.

In 1992 he was unanimously awarded first prize in the Norwich Festival Composition Competition, and won the Gregynog Young Composers' Award in 1993, also sharing the Barbara Johnstone Composition Prize in 1995, while he has also been shortlisted for the William Mathias, Cornelius Cardew, Oare String Orchestra, Purcell and Vocalis composition awards.

Formerly Head of Musical Techniques at Trinity College of Music, he is Associate Music Director of the Occam Singers, Chorus Master of the Parliament Choir and the Malcolm Sargent Festival Choir, Organist of St. George's Cathedral, Southwark and Brighton College and a visiting teacher at the London Oratory School. He also lectures for Birkbeck, University of London.  Nick is a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists and an Honorary Fellow of the Academy of Saint Cecilia, on whose advisory panel he sits.  He has recently been appointed the Academy's first Composer In Residence.