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David Hush was born in Bristol, England. He was educated at Clifton College, the University of Sydney, and Princeton University.

Hush's music, spanning solo instrumental, chamber ensemble, orchestral, and choral idioms, has been performed, recorded, and broadcast on five continents. Hush has received premieres in Buenos Aires, Caracas, Chicago, Hagen, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, New York, and San Diego.

Hush has received fellowships and awards from inter alia, Princeton University, the Hinrichsen Foundation, and the New Jersey State Council of the Arts. In addition he has received the Ignaz Friedman Prize, was named the first recipient of the Schoenberg Award in 1984, and has received numerous awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). Hush was composer-in-residence at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 1993-4.

Hush's Sonata for Violin Solo was recorded by Zina Schiff as the centrepiece of King David's Lyre, the disc released in celebration of Jerusalem's 3,000th anniversary. King David's Lyre was cited as one of the best recordings of the year by the American Record Guide in its critics' choice for 1997.

In 1997 Hush was commissioned by the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity to write Pictures of Israel, a work for violin, double bass, and tabla. The premiere of this piece, on 29 June 1997 in San Diego, saw Zina Schiff joining forces with the acclaimed American double bassist Bertram Turetzky.

Hush joined the Composition Faculty of the Australian Institute of Music in 1998. Five of Hush's compositions for solo violin were broadcast live on the Internet from Seattle 7 May 2001. The works – all performed by Zina Schiff – reached an audience of 100,000 worldwide.

In 2002 Hush completed his first composition for solo voice, Two Psalms for soprano and piano. Hush is currently a consultant and composer-in-residence to the Leopold Mozart Academy of Music.

Hush writes:

Far from viewing the role of performers as solely technical, I see collaboration between composer and performer as a collaboration of artists. If the performer is an artist, he or she will confer on a piece an interpretation that is unique. I learn a great deal from such interpretation. I learn not only about the piece at issue but also about more general possibilities of creating with sounds.

Biography provided by the composer — current to May 2006