After growing up in the coal-mining valleys of South Wales, Hilary Tann spent much of her career in the United States, living in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York where she chaired the Music Department and was the John Howard Payne Professor at Union College, Schenectady. Her compositional style was influenced by her childhood in Wales, her strong identification with the natural world, and a deep interest in the traditional music of Japan.