Ana-Maria Avram was born in 1961 in Bucharest, Romania. A composer, pianist, and musicologist, she studied composition at the Bucharest Conservatory (now the National University of Music Bucharest) from 1980 to 1985, graduating with highest honors in writing, analysis, counterpoint, harmony, orchestration, and musical aesthetics. In parallel, she studied piano and chamber music in Paris, earning her masters in music aesthetics from the Sorbonne in 1992. In 1994, she was awarded the Grand Prize in Composition from the Romanian Academy, and in 1995 received her PhD in Musical Aesthetics from the Sorbonne.

As a young musician in the mid- to late 1980s she was awarded numerous national and international prizes in composition and chamber music, and joined the Hyperion Ensemble of Bucharest in 1988, a group she co-conducted with its founder, Iancu Dumitrescu. In 2000 she received the Prix Ars Electronica at the Festival Ars Electronica/Linz for Traces, Sillons, Sillages for ensemble and computer-assisted sounds.

In her lifetime she composed over 200 works, which have been performed in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Stanford, Vienna (Festival Wien Modern: 1992 and 1994), Paris (Radio-France, Théâtre de la Ville), Allicante, Lisbon, Baden-Baden, Darmstadt, Moscow, etc.

Her works have been played by numerous soloists and ensembles, including the Kronos Quartet, 20 Jahrhunderdt de Vienne, Claude Delangle, Elena Vassilieva, the George Enesco Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Radio Orchestra of Romania, the Romanian Chamber Orchestra, and more. Her music was also commissioned by many institutions and ensembles, including Radio France, Kronos Quartet, various Romanian orchestras, and Ensemble Ars Nova.

In 2006 she founded the Romanian Community of Electro-acoustic and Computer Assisted Music (CREMAC) and she served as the vice-President of the International Community of Electro-acoustic Music (CIME), affiliated with IMC and UNESCO. She also co-founded and served as the artistic director of Spectrum XXI, a festival devoted to showcasing innovative Romanian music.

Ana-Maria Avram died in 2017.