Wendy Hiscocks was born in New South Wales, Australia, and began playing the piano at an early age. In her teens she started composing, and went on to study composition with Peter Sculthorpe at Sydney University. In the three years after her graduation, her work with schoolchildren established composition as an accredited subject in the West Australian school syllabus.

Since she moved to London in 1987, her works have been performed and broadcast worldwide, including concerts at London's South Bank and Wigmore Hall, BBC and Australian ABC broadcasts, and major Festivals in various countries. She has been awarded commissioning grants from the Arts Council of England and the Australia Council, and for the Schubert Ensemble's Chamber Music 2000 project. Premières of her music have been given by singers Elizabeth Connell, Naomi Itami, Damien Top and Keith Hempton, cellist Matthias Feile, pianists Roy Howat and (8-year-old) Cordelia Williams, the chamber groups Triangulus and English Serenata, and the Choir of Jesus College, Cambridge. The first piece of her children's piano collection Light is on the Grade 1 syllabus of the Fédération française des Écoles de Musique.

Wendy's appearances as pianist include London's South Bank, Festivals and broadcasts in the UK, France, Switzerland, and Australia, and on a CD of Chabrier piano music (with her pianist husband Roy Howat). She was on the faculty of the 1998 Dartington International Summer School.

*Pastel & Oil (flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon) 1995-7, 9 minutes.

*Fantasy on a Tale (flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon) 1998, 10 minutes.

*The Last Invocation (flute,oboe, viola, cello and tenor) 1996, 3 minutes.

*The Day of the Singing Birds (flute, piano and soprano) 1991, 2 1/2 minutes

9 June 2004