Penelope Thwaites

Penelope Mary Thwaites AM. is a concert pianist and composer, recording artist and editor. Born in the United Kingdom of Australian parents, she is a citizen of both countries.

She grew up in Melbourne, Australia, attending Tintern Grammar and taking a degree in Music from Melbourne University (B.Mus Hons 1966), where she won the Ormond Exhibition and was placed first in her final year. Following a period of working internationally as musical director and composer of music for the theatre, she continued orchestration studies in London with William L Reed and piano studies with the Swiss pianist Albert Ferber, a pupil of Walter Gieseking and who often played for Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Her debut at London’s Wigmore Hall in 1974, sponsored by the Stanley Lewis Concerts Society, was followed by concerts and broadcasts in the UK and tours world-wide, both as solo recitalist and concerto soloist. In 1993, she appeared in the Australia Day Gala at the Royal Opera House in the presence of the Prince of Wales.

She has appeared with orchestras including the London Philharmonic, Philharmonia, BBC Concert Orchestra and leading orchestras in Australia, Europe and America.

Her concert repertoire encompasses a wide range of classical composers, some represented on her CD ‘Travelling Between Worlds’ (LIR). Her Bach recording (2013) for the same label was described in one review as ‘classic Bach keyboard works enlivened by some exquisite playing...Bach's music becomes here in one of Busoni's adaptations, richly expressive and soul searching, raptly played...an impressive survey of some wonderful good-to-be-alive music’ (Sinfoni September 2014).

Beginning in 1975 Penelope has made a point of including music by Australian composers such as Malcolm Williamson, Margaret Sutherland, Arthur Benjamin, Peggy Glanville-Hicks, Jennifer Fowler, Alison Bauld, David Worrall and many more, whether in solo recitals, concertos and chamber works. Her pioneering LP ‘Australian Piano Music’ (Discourses 1980) was broadcast worldwide as something of a novelty at the time.

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