Livia Teodorescu-Ciocănea, born in Galaţi, eastern Romania, in 1959, studied piano at the Porumbescu Conservatoire (now the National University of Music) in Bucharest in 1977 and graduated in 1981 with a Bachelor degree in Composition. In 1995 she was appointed assistant professor at the National University of Music in Bucharest, teaching form and analysis and orchestration. In 1997 she became a lecturer, and between 2004 and 2015 she worked as an Associate Professor in composition, form and analysis. In 2015 she was appointed Professor of Composition at the same institution.

Tamara Smolyar, born in Kiev, began her formal piano lessons at the age of four, gave her first public performance at seven and enjoyed a glittering early career in the Soviet Union. From 1994 to 2018 she was a Senior Lecturer in Music Performance, Coordinator of Piano, at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music at Monash University, Melbourne. She is currently a member of the piano staff at the Australian Guild of Music, Mentone Girls Grammar School and the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne.