From rural County Down, Deirdre’s work has featured at London’s Southbank, The Wigmore Hall, The Phillips Collection, Washington, Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam, Orléans Concours International, Gothenburg International Chamber Music Festival, The National Sawdust, Brooklyn, Symphony Space and Carnegie Hall, New York.

Recipient of a Director’s Choice Award from Boston Metro Opera’s International Composers’ Competition and an Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s Major Individual Artist Award, Deirdre received a Paul Hamlyn Composer Award, London, in 2018. Deirdre’s work represented Ireland at the 2023 International Society for Contemporary Music World New Music Days, Cape Town, South Africa.

Recent performances include her Dublin International Piano Competition commission, Ash, performed by Danny Driver at Oxford’s Smorgaschord Festival, Litany to the Magdalene Dead commissioned and performed by Deirdre Brenner with Lotte Betts-Dean, West Cork Chamber Music Festival; a GlasDrum Winter Chamber Music Festival commission setting Seamus Heaney’s The Owl, for The Fidelio Trio and soprano Daire Halpin, a Ficino Ensemble winter tour of her Beckett Centenary Festival commission and performances by pianist Andrew Zolinsky in Dublin, London and Dark Music Days Festival, Iceland.

Previous commissions and performances have included works for Northern Ireland Opera, State Choir Latvija for Louth Contemporary Music, BBC Singers, Chamber Choir Ireland, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, Boston Firebird Ensemble, Norwegian Vertavo, Swiss Terpsycordes, Vanbrugh and RTÉ Con Tempo string quartets, Access Contemporary Music Chicago, New Music Dublin, Sound Festival, Aberdeen, RTÉ’s Composing the Island and Living Music Festivals; Musici Ireland, Dutch violist Elisabeth Smalt, Calefax Reed Quintet, Finnish pianist Antti Siirala, Chloë Hanslip & Danny Driver, Darragh Morgan & Mary Dullea, Mairéad Hickey & Fiachra Garvey, Dušica Mladenović & Ian Wilson, Catherine Leonard & Hugh Tinney, Tasmin Little & Martin Roscoe, Ruth Morley & Laura Bowler, Clíona Doris, Robin Tritschler, Concorde and the Crash Ensemble. Former Composer in Association to the Northern Sinfonia’s Young Sinfonia, Deirdre was the featured composer on the Chamber Music on Valentia Festival, 2020.

Collaborative partnerships have included new works with visual artist Jean Duncan, writer/ actor Richard Dormer, poets Kate Newmann, Damian Smyth and Maria McManus. Her work has been incorporated by filmmaker Des Bell into three films, featuring at the Venice Film Festival, Dublin International Film Festival and Montreal World Film Festival. Deirdre received a British Academy Award for her Masters in Composition at The University of Manchester, completing her composition doctorate at Queen’s University, Belfast, with Piers Hellawell. Deirdre studied privately with Kevin Volans.

Her music has been released on the Lorelt, Diatribe, Métier and RTÉ Lyric FM labels and broadcast by BBC Radio 3, RTÉ, Deutschlandradio Kultur and New York's WNYC and WQXR.