Deirdre O'Leary is a freelance clarinettist with a passion for chamber music, contemporary music and creative education work. She graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, eleven years ago with performance diplomas in Clarinet and in Chamber Music. During her college years, she travelled twice to Siena on scholarship to study at the Accademia Chigiana summer school. In her final year of college, Deirdre began working regularly with the NSO of Ireland and the RTECO doubling on bass and E flat clarinet. Between '96 and '98 she was inspired by playing with the highly motivated European Union Youth Orchestra and touring Europe under Haitink and Rostropovich. In the winter of '97 she sold all she owned to fund an intensive sailing course in the icy Isle of Wight. Four months later grasping her Yachtmaster certificate, she set off for a remote Greek peninsula to teach sailing for Sunsail. After seven months of island hopping she received a call from the Irish Chamber Orchestra and, realizing she couldn't live without music she flew home. Since joining the Crash Ensemble four years ago, Deirdre has developed an obsession with funky contemporary music and experimental bass clarinet noises. In 2004 she traveled to Amsterdam and toured Estonia with the group. In the same year, she took part in a performance in Edinburgh called Life's Hard, composed and produced by Stephen Deazley, involving an eclectic group of musicians and a Russian company of contemporary dancers. With Susan Doyle and Sile Daly she founded Prey trio in 2001, with the aims of bringing classical and contemporary chamber music to wider audiences without compromising on the complexity of the music, and exploring the outer limits of performance in collaboration with artists from other disciplines. Prey Trio has enjoyed great success as part of the Music Network Musicwide programme, for whom they tour the country giving concerts and workshops. In April ’06, Prey played a slot in a live broadcast concert for lyric fm’s Blue of the Night from the Sugar Club, Dublin. Composers John McLachlan and Michael McGlynn have recently completed works written for Prey, and Stephen Gardner is currently composing for the trio. Michael McGlynn’s work was commissioned by lyric fm and was recorded by lyric for broadcast in late 2006. Prey also has a theatrical collaboration in the pipeline. Details still under wraps! Deirdre has been invited several times over the past eight years to perform at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in Bantry, collaborating with the Paris Bastille Octet (Romain Guyot, Francois Leleux), Catherine Leonard, Barry Guy, Natalie Clein, Cristina Zavalloni, Laurent Wagner and others. Deirdre spends her spare time dancing with her husband and their two little daughters to the music of John Zorn and Klezperanto and dreaming of the cob cottage they will build in Cloughjordan.