 Her father was also a conductor for the BBC Singers, and when her father was appointed musical director of the Netherlands Chamber Choir, the family moved to Amsterdam.Two years later her parents separated, and Woodward, her brother, and her mother moved to New York near her maternal grandparents—James Halitsky, a meteorologist, and Sylvia, an educational psychologist at a residential treatment centre for court-referred children.Woodward's mother worked on the "Grove Dictionaries", bellydanced professionally, and became a music teacher in the public schools of New York City.