Her repertoire was very wide, including composers as diverse as William Byrd, Jan Sweelinck, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Béla Bartók.

Valda Aveling was born in Sydney,[1] the youngest of four girls and a boy, and showed great talent at an early age.

[6] She was active as a harpsichordist before the emergence of the early music movement and commissioned works for the instrument from living composers.

She played Bach concertos for two, three or four keyboards, with players such as George Malcolm, Simon Preston, Eileen Joyce and Geoffrey Parsons, and conductors such as Yehudi Menuhin.

She lived the last ten years of her life being cared for by friends and tending her garden, which contained a large eucalyptus tree imported from Australia.