Judith Bailey was born in Cornwall and studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, specialising in clarinet, piano, conducting and composition. Since 1971 she has worked freelance, conducting Petersfield Orchestra and Southampton Concert Orchestra for around thirty years, and producing a substantial amount of music which is widely performed and published. In 2001 she returned to live and work in her native Cornwall where she is conductor of Penzance Orchestra Society and Cornwall Chamber Orchestra, and in the same year was awarded the honour of an ARAM from the Royal Academy. In 2005 she was made a Bard of the Cornish Gorseth for services to music in Cornwall.