Thea Musgrave (born 1928) was a prominent Scottish-born composer whose works include operas, ballet scores, orchestral pieces, chamber music, and vocal and choral works. Her music was performed in Great Britain, Europe, and the United States.

Thea Musgrave was highly regarded for her talent in a wide variety of musical forms. Her compositional techniques included serial writing and electronically generated sound, but her personal style was not confined to one school of composition. She described the form of some of her music as "dramatic-abstract" and said,

Music goes from moment to moment, and I'm very conscious of voice-leading. I'm also conscious of the big gesture, the route the music will follow, and that is where tonality comes in, creating the feeling of home. The feeling of home can be established by a chord or a color or a rhythm. Or when you arrive at E-flat. It's not E-flat major...