Rebecca Saunders was born in London in 1967. She studied music, majoring in performance (violin) and composition, at Edinburgh University, and studying composition from1991-1994 with Wolfgang Rihm at the Karlsruhe Music College in Germany. From 1994-1997 she held the Premier Scholarship at the Edinburgh University for a PhD in Composition with Nigel Osborne.

She has received various composition prizes including the Ernst von Siemens Förderpreis, the ARD und BMW AG musicaviva Prize, the Paul Hindemith Prize, and for chamber music the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Award in 2008.

In 2009 she became a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts, and is at present Capel-Compositeur at the Staatskapelle Dresden for the 2009/2010 season.

Rebecca Saunders lives in Berlin.