Born in Israel, Betty Olivero has lived in Florence, Italy, for most of her career, and now resides again in Israel. She is an associate professor of composition at the Music Department in Bar-Ilan University and composer-in-residence for the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. Inspired by ancient Jewish and other early musical traditions—Judeo-Spanish, Arab, and medieval music—her music employs both contemporary and avant-garde compositional forms. She has been awarded the Fromm Award by the Fromm Music Foundation (USA, 1986), the Koussevitzky Award by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation (USA, 2000), the Prime Minister's Prize (Israel, 2001), the Rosenblum Award for the Performing Arts (Israel, 2003), the Landau Award for the Performing Arts (Israel, 2004), the ACUM prize for Life Achievements (Israel, 2004), the Prime Minister's Prize (Israel, 2009) and the ACUM Award for Achievement of the Year, named after Menachem Avidom (Israel, 2010). Her works are published by Universal Music Publishing Classical (Casa Ricordi Music Milano) in Italy, and the Israel Music Institute (IMI) in Israel. Her works have been recorded on the ECM, Angel, Koch International, Ricordi, Plaene, IMI, Beit Hatefutsoth, and Folkways labels.