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Photo: Claude Raschella

Becky Llewellyn is an Australian composer with wide-ranging interests and styles, always with lyricism at the heart of her music. A fully represented composer at the Australian Music Centre, Llewellyn has worked in major classical music genres for some of Australia's top musicians and is comfortable writing for non-professional musicians. 2024 saw the premiere of her string quartet, Barossa Girl, by the Stringy Bark Quartet and Chamber Music Adelaide and her new art song, Fern.

Celebrating her 75th birthday in 2025, Llewellyn migrated to Australia in 1969 and has made her home in Adelaide. She has been active in the disability rights movement through her first husband Richard Llewellyn's involvement and has worked for decades to make Adelaide Australia's most accessible city. She raised two step-children, two children and now shares several grandchildren with her second husband, Marty Cielens.

She has a BA Hons (Drama), studying with the legendary Wal Cherry at Flinders University Drama Centre and in composition with the equally legendary Graeme Koehne with whom she did her undergraduate and Masters of Music (Composition) study at the Elder Conservatorium of Music.

In 1991, Llewellyn instigated the first Composing Women's Festival in Adelaide which went on to other Australian cities throughout the '90s and formed a new awareness of women's musical talent. Her involvement is chronicled in Rosalind Appleby's Women of Note, the rise of Australian Women Composers.

As a story-teller, she also employed her skills to critical acclaim as librettist, composer and arranger for her chamber opera, The Portrait, a musical tribute to Stella Bowen. This was commissioned and toured in four states by Co-Opera.

Llewellyn has particularly enjoyed choral writing, including the mesmerising Whales Weep Not! for choir, marimba and percussion. This work has all the hallmarks of Llewellyn's empathy with a subject, turning it into a poetic underwater meditation with voices and bells.

Active in church music-making, she has written several Psalm-settings and a full liturgy setting, Reformation Liturgy, as well as many anthems for small choirs. Peace Prayer is her offering for faith-based services and peace vigils based on a Ukrainian folk tune. Last year, she wrote an equally evocative Palestine Prayer before hostilities commenced on October 7th. She is currently secretary of the Royal School of Church Music South Australia.

Llewellyn's Policewoman's Polka has been selected to be the test piece for the National Concert Band Championship - Open D division, in Kew Victoria on April 19th. (https://www.facebook.com/ausbandchamps)

Becky is a voracious reader in art, culture, politics, history and indigenous issues. For a detailed biographical memoir of her 32 years as a carer and composer from the 1970-90s, check out 'Handicapped' on your favourite digital book outlet.

Becky Llewellyn — current to April 2025