Rosalie Bonighton (1946–2024) was born in Ballarat, Victoria, and trained in composition under Keith Humble, Ian Bonighton, Theodore Dollarhide and Lawrence Whiffin. She completed a Bachelor of Music at the University of Melbourne and a Master of Arts (Music) at La Trobe University, with a thesis on Contemporary Liturgical Music and the Composer.

Her distinctive voice drew on plainchant modes, British and Celtic folk traditions, late-Romantic harmonic tension, jazz harmonies and syncopation, multi-metric layering and selective serial techniques. Above all, she believed a composer’s originality lay in skilfully matching aesthetic vision to practical need, producing music that was useful, accessible, imaginative, challenging and uplifting.

Bonighton’s awards include the 1967 Coutts Memorial Prize, the 1999 Song of Jubilee, joint winner of the 1983 National Liturgical Psalm-Setting Competition and the 2004–05 New Zealand Association of Organists prize. She received commissions from the National Liturgical Music Convention, the Royal School of Church Music Australia, the University of Ballarat and the Australian Music Examinations Board.

For eighteen years she was a valued “house composer” for Kevin Mayhew Ltd (UK), who published nearly 500 of her choral and organ works. As publisher Kevin Mayhew reflected, “Ros understood that the average parish organist was not as technically assured as she was but had a way of writing that makes people sound better than they are,” producing everything from ravishing meditations such as In the shadow of your wings to exuberant Liturgical Jazz and riotous variations like Up she rises.

Alongside composing, Bonighton served as school and parish organist and piano accompanist. Her extensive legacy continues to enrich worship and performance worldwide.