Penelope Thwaites is a popular Australian pianist who is best known for her advocacy of the piano music of Percy Grainger. Indeed, she has recorded about 250 pieces of Grainger's music, spread over 10 discs in a massive complete Grainger project on the Chandos label. Yet, for all her selfless championing of Grainger's music, she herself is a talented composer in her own right and a virtuoso pianist possessing a fairly broad repertory. Her own compositional output includes chamber, choral, vocal, piano, organ, and theater works. Beyond her extensive Grainger repertory, Thwaites also plays an array of works by J.S. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Schumann, Chopin, Brahms, Fauré, Chabrier, Rachmaninov, Debussy, Gershwin, and, of course, her own compositions. Thwaites has concertized across Europe, Asia, Australia, the U.S., and, most extensively, throughout England, the country to which she relocated. There she has regularly appeared with such orchestras as the Philharmonia, London Philharmonic, and BBC Concert Orchestra. Beside Chandos, Thwaites' recordings are available from Pearl, Regis, and London Independent Records. Penelope Thwaites was born in Australia in 1944. She studied music at Melbourne University. Thwaites' major debut in England came in 1974 at Wigmore Hall. From 1976 she developed an intense interest in the music of Grainger, which included not only solo piano music but works for four hands. From 1979, Thwaites has performed in a duo with fellow Australian pianist John Lavender, with whom she has collaborated both in concert and on recording in Grainger's works, as well as other repertory. By 1990 Thwaites was recognized as one of the foremost keyboard interpreters of Grainger's music. In 1991 she was awarded the Grainger Medallion by the International Grainger Society. In the early '90s Thwaites urged Chandos Records to record all of Grainger's works, a project upon completion running to about 25 discs. In 1998 Thwaites served as artistic director of the London Grainger Event. At the outset of the new century she founded the Performing Australian Music Competition and, in 2001, was given the Order of Australia. She also established the Thwaites Trio in 2007 with violinist Dima Tkachenko and cellist Marie Mcleod. Thwaites, who continues to give solo concerts and make regular duo appearances with Lavender, also performs with cellist Rohan de Saram. Among Thwaites' later recordings is the 2008 London Independent Records CD Traveling Between Worlds, a collection of piano works by Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, and others.