Deirdre Gribbin

Northern Ireland conposer Deirdre Gribbin was born on 14 May 1967 in Belfast, where she studied at Queen's University and began to write music. She later studied with Robert Saxton at the Guildhall School of Music in London and with Per Nørgård in Denmark.

Deirdre Gribbin's piano work Per Speculum in Aenigmate won the composition prize at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.

Her violin concerto Venus Blazing toured the UK, selling out at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall. Some of her music is influenced by the political climate in Northern Ireland, such as the lambeg drums from the Protestant marching band tradition featured in Goliath, her Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra, commissioned by the BBC.

Hearing Your Genes Evolve resulted from a 2012 residency at the Molecular Biology Library in Cambridge, UK, and was featured in The Dark Gene, a documentary film about genetics.

Her music has been performed in New Zealand, Hong Kong, San Francisco and, with Patricia Rosario, at the Con Brio Festival in Mumbai.