Alison Bauld was born in 1944 in Sydney. A piano student of Alexander Sverjensky at the Conservatorium of NSW, she later studied acting at the National Institute of Dramatic Art, subsequently touring in Shakespearian productions for a year before completing a Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Sydney.

She came to England on a university scholarship in 1969 and after studying composition in her first two years in London with Elisabeth Lutyens and Hans Keller, she completed a doctorate in composition at the University of York in 1974.

Her music, almost all of a theatrical genre, has won international prizes and is regularly performed in concerts and broadcasts throughout Europe, the USA and Australia.