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Peggy Polias was born in Sydney in 1981. She graduated from Sydney University in 2002 with a Bachelor of Music (Honours I), studying with Professor Anne Boyd and Dr John Peterson towards a Composition major. Polias was awarded the Busby Musical Scholarship for 2001.

Since graduating, Polias has been working as a music score copyist for several well–loved Australian composers and various freelance clients. Polias also teaches piano, guitar and music theory from her home studio, the piano having been her first instrument.

During her studies Polias learned to play in a Javanese Gamelan, and continues to enjoy the form as a member of the Langen Suka Sydney Gamelan Association. This has been an important experience for Polias, and has had a significant influence on her own music. As well as being a playing member of Langen Suka, Polias has become archivist for the group, and is gradually compiling their concert history.

Other influences include: rock and pop music, early Blues, Rebetika, minimalism and repetitive process music, the composer Iannis Xenakis, geometric patterns and repetitive visual textures, feminism, and handicrafts.

Polias composes in two streams: little popular songs and score–based instrumental music. The song Mess was included in the 2006 Pacific Rim mix of the US–based Vox Novus 60x60 project. Her orchestral work Heart gained the FAC Encouragement Award in the 2005 2MBS–Willoughby Symphony Orchestra Young Composers' Competition, and recently Polias won the Canberra International Chamber Music Festival Young Composers' competition, for a new solo piano work to be premiered at the 2007 festival.

Biography provided by the composer — current to August 2007