Background
Austin was born Dorothea Blaukopf into a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria.
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Dorothea Austin
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She studied piano at the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music with Tobias Matthay in London, and afterward worked as a concert pianist.
Career
As a child, she was already performing as a concert pianist. She fled to England before World World War II on the last Kindertransport sponsored by the Red Cross. In England she worked in a factory for a while to support herself, but was evenutally taken in by Quaker philanthropists Nelly and Rachel Leighton.
She began teaching piano at that time, and continued this work after the couple emigrated to the United States in 1949.
The Austins located in Valley Stream, Long Island, where they lived until Harry Austin died in 1974. As her performing career had been interrupted by the war, Austin attended Queens College (City University of New York) in New York City, where she studied composition with Leo Kraft and George Perle.
She developed in interest in electronic forms and composition with synthesizer, working successfully as a composer. Austin took a position as professor at Queensborough Community College, where she remained for nearly forty years, also serving as department chairman
Austin had three daughters.
Her papers are housed at Queensborough Community College Library.
Membership
Austin was a member of the New York Women Composers Association.
