Margaret Nielsen
New Zealand pianist, piano teacher and academic (1933–2023)
Margaret Alison Nielsen (22 August 1933 – 20 April 2023) was a New Zealand pianist, music teacher and academic. In 2005 she was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to music.
Early life and education
Nielsen was born and brought up in Hāwera, and was the youngest of five children born to town clerk Joseph Nielsen and Maisie nee Fennell. Maisie was a piano teacher, and she and daughter Eileen died on the same day in 1936. After Maisie's death her sister Anne, a harpist, moved in to help bring up the children. Nielsen attended Hāwera Technical College, where she was the school pianist. The family were Catholic, but Margaret Nielsen abandoned the religion after being forbidden to play at a school concert in the Anglican church. Nielsen had piano lessons in New Plymouth, and attended a summer school run by Vernon Griffiths and John Ritchie. Nielsen travelled to Christchurch to attend Christchurch Teachers' College, and also studied piano with Ernest Empson. Nielsen was left a small legacy by her aunt Anne, which she used to study for a Bachelor of Music at the University of Canterbury.
The public source identifies “Margaret Nielsen” as new Zealand pianist, piano teacher and academic (1933–2023). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Margaret, Nielsen and Zealand.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q118192200. VIAF identifies the subject as 55605298. The Library of Congress control number is n85306609. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1933, 2023, 2005 and 1936.
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This entry incorporates text from “Margaret Nielsen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.