 She also wrote music criticism before leaving Australia for "The Daily Telegraph" in Sydney, and from 1988 to 1991 for "The Independent", as well as contributing to a variety of magazines including "The Listener".Meredith Oakes is a seventh-generation Australian who was educated at Cheltenham Girls High School, Sydney from 1959 to 1963, and then at the University of Sydney where she took double honours in French and Music.She studied violin with Gordon Bennett of the Sydney String Quartet and piano as a second instrument.