She learned to play the piano on her grandmother's "imposing beast of an instrument", including "Cockles and Mussels" and "Wedding of the Painted Doll".
[5][6] During the 2000s Whitwell provided session work for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), whenever they wanted "something slightly left-field, or crossover, or contemporary".
[14] Whitwell told Lesnie that the Stuart & Sons piano "allows so many colours, such subtle gradations of dynamics, that you can't get on another instrument in my experience.
[15] In December The Australian's Mark Coughlan described her interpretation as "excellent throughout this disc, going beyond mere notational accuracy to breathe life and shape into the music".
[16] Stephen Eddins writing for AllMusic declared "[her] disregard for conventionality bubbles through just about every aspect of her recording ... surprising rhythmic emphases may make anyone familiar with the piece sit up and do a double-take, and her tempo is about 25% faster than Glass' version ... [s]he brings acute intelligence and sensitive musicality to each of the pieces, most of which have a delicately melancholy tone".
[17] Its theme was cinema-based music from various feature films including The Hunger (1983), The Portrait of a Lady (1996), Amélie (2001), The Hours (2002), and Twilight (2008).
[18] The Canberra Times' Ron Cerabona summarised her selection "[s]ome are pieces of classical music; others are from original film scores and she associates each of them with a particular character".
[21] On 6 September 2013 Whitwell issued her third solo album, All Imperfect Things: The Piano Music of Michael Nyman, which was engineered and produced by Virginia Read.
[23] Whitwells' composition "Spirit of the Plains" appeared on the 2013 eponymously titled album that covered Australian flute music from 1997 to 2013.
[26] As of October 2008 Sally Whitwell lived with her domestic and business partner, United Kingdom-born Glennda Blyth, a visual artist.