Creators | Directors | Pianists

Pianist Deirdre Brenner has performed throughout the USA, Europe and Asia. A musician with a passion for chamber music and art song, she has given recitals in venues including the Wiener Musikverein, Wiener Kozerthaus, Wiener Volksoper, The Kennedy Center (Washington, DC), Teatro Real (Madrid), Philharmonie Essen, Stadthalle (Bayreuth), the National Concert Hall (Dublin), St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and St. James-Picadilly (London), and the Hollywell Music Room (Oxford).

Deirdre has performed at festivals including the Seoul Spring Festival of Chamber Music, Oxford Lieder Festival, Aix-en-Provence Festival, LOISIARTE, Rhodes Chamber Music Festival, Gustav Mahler Festival Steinbach, Stimmen Festival Freistadt, and Portogruaro International Music Festival. She has given recitals with artists including Wolfgang Holzmair, Birgid Steinberger, Layla Claire, John Chest, Tara Erraught, Sophie Junker, Matthew Rose and Klemens Sander, and has performed as soloist with numerous ensembles including the Arnold Schoenberg Chor. She has recorded for broadcasts on ORF, NPR and BR-Klassik, among others.

Also in demand as a teacher and coach, Deirdre is currently on the faculty of the Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität in Linz and  IES Abroad in Vienna. She has accompanied vocal masterclasses given by Bernarda Fink, Wolfgang Holzmair, Birgid Steinberger, Linda Watson, Michaela Schuster, Ulrike Sych, Rudolf Jansen and Elly Ameling, and was an official accompanist for the 2010 's-Hertogenbosch International Vocal Competition in the Netherlands. Further musical projects have taken her to Venezuela, Egypt, Israel, the West Bank, Samoa and the Kingdom of Tonga. 

Originally from Massachusetts, USA, Deirdre earned a Bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College in Engineering Sciences and Music, and Master's degrees from both the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Konservatorium Wien (MUK). She studied with pianists including Carolyn Hague, Susan Manoff, John O'Conor, Julius Drake, Colin Stone, Sally Pinkas and Loretta Slovak. 

In addition to Mosaïque, Deirdre is also Co-Director of the Boyne Music Festival in Drogheda, Ireland.

The pianist and musicologist Chanda VanderHart received her Bachelors of Music Degree in Piano Performance with honors from the Eastman School of Music in New York. Her graduate studies in vocal coaching and accompaniment took place in Europe with Julius Drake, Roger Vignoles, Dr. Carolyn Hague, Antoinette VanZabner, Kirstin Okerlund, David Aronson and Claus-Christian Schuster among others. In 2016 she received her PhD summa cum laude at the University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Her thesis, Die Entwicklung des Kunstliedes im Wiener Konzertleben zwischen 1848 und 1897 is now being transformed into a book for Hollitzer under the mentorship of Susan Youens.

Chanda is currently on faculty at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien as both a lecturer for the musicology department and as a research fellow. She has lectured at both the Pädagogische Hochschule and the Fachhochschule Technikum Wien, was a lecturer and lieder coach at the American Institute for Musical Studies (AIMS) in Graz and the Sankt Goar International Music Festival and Academy. She was a pianist and vocal coach at the Performing Center Austria and taught courses in history, ear training and song interpretation. Since 2013 Chanda has regularly reviewed concert and opera productions for the London-based publication www.bachtrack.com as well as for MET on demand. 

An active chamber musician and recording artist, Chanda has given concerts with a wide variety of singers and instrumentalists in numerous halls throughout Europe, Asia and North America including London’s Wigmore Hall, Beurs van Berlag in Amsterdam, the Concertgebow Rotterdam, Kala Mandir in Kolkata, Vienna’s Musikverein, Volksoper and Volkstheater and throughout the Mediterranean  on the luxury cruise liner MS Europa. Her recordings include both Brahms sonatas for cello and piano on the historical "Brahmsflügel” with cellist Ronald Fuchs as well as a double CD of the cellos works of Robert Fuchs on a historical New York Steinway. Other recordings include 13, songs of Barber and Argento with tenor Jason Brides, and Waldgespräch, a collection of fin-de-siecle Lieder with baritone Günter Haumer.

Chanda is a passionate advocate of cross-over projects in a multitude of forms. She is musical director and pianist of the Vienna Hot Box Girls’ Opera and Jazz Burlesque ensembles, and of the European branch of Opera Moderne. She is co-founder of both the Mosaïque and the multimedia performance initiative Talespin, Musical Tales for Big and Small.