Born in Chester UK and resident in London for most of her life, Penelope grew up in Australia, winning first place on graduation in Music from Melbourne University. Her London debut in 1974 at the Wigmore Hall launched an unusually varied career. She has won acclaim not just as an intensely communicative concert pianist and recording artist in a wide repertoire, but as composer, writer and editor, broadcaster and music festival curator. In 2001, she was awarded the Order of Australia for her work. She is recognised internationally as a leading exponent of Percy Grainger’s music, with over 260 tracks recorded, and as editor of The New Percy Grainger Companion. Find out more here

She has played as soloist with such orchestras as the London Philharmonic, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Philharmonia, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, City of London Sinfonia, Albany Symphony, and most of the leading Australian orchestras.

She has broadcast frequently on the BBC and has devised series where she both introduced the music and performed it. Recent projects included the successful premiere in Canberra of a newly commissioned Missa Brevis, a Grainger week of lectures, coaching and a sold-out concert at the Melbourne Recital Centre with outstanding young musicians of the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne. There were also further productions in Germany of her musical ‘Ride!Ride!”. 

November 2016’s launch of the new Complete Grainger for two pianos was a huge success – Penelope being joined by the outstanding Australian pianist, Timothy Young.