Further studies were in London (at the Guildhall School of Music with (Robert Saxton) and in Denmark (with Per Nørgård).
Her first professional success came when her piano piece Per Speculum in Aenigmate won the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival Composition Prize.
(inspired by the work of the Irish painter Jack B. Yeats), the piano trio How to Make the Water Sound, the opera Hey Persephone!, the violin concerto Venus Blazing, which was directed by Lou Stein with lighting by Jeff Ravitz, and The Binding of The Years, for piano and orchestra.
Several of her works respond to the political climate of her homeland, such as the ensemble piece Tribe, the orchestral work Unity of Being, which was performed by the Ulster Orchestra as part of the UK WITH NY Festival in New York after 9/11, and her epic percussion concerto Goliath, premiered at the Belfast Festival in 2006.
[3] Richard Morrison of the Times wrote of her in June 2004: "This Belfast born composer is one of the most original thinkers in years.