Chantal Clifford was born in Belfast in July 1976. She began taking piano lessons at the age of seven. Due to much appreciated encouragement from her family and teacher (Mrs Heather Andrews) she continued to study music as a subject as well as piano as first instrument. During her school years Chantal always held a fascination for other instruments and singing, involving herself in the girl's choirs as an alto, playing double bass in the orchestra, flute in the band and becoming a member of the tin whistle society.     Although she decided to study History for her degree, taken at Trinity College, Dublin, Chantal kept up her lessons on the piano with teacher Blanid Murphy throughout.     Whilst studying in Dublin Chantal also began learning to play electric keyboards for various bands and her enthusiasm for this led her to take a year-long course on the music industry after attaining her degree. This was followed by a brief period of four months playing in a sponsored traditional folk group that concentrated on entertaining elderly people in retirement homes.     From 1999 to 2002 Chantal studied for her instrumental teaching diploma at the Dublin Conservatory of Music, graduating with a 2:1. Click here to see reference from the Course Tutor.     Throughout 2002 Chantal both taught and accompanied young musicians in Dublin. At the beginning of 2003 Chantal decided to move to London to teach. After two productive years of teaching, and occasionally lecturing on music in a London college, she moved back to Belfast for a year to carry on with her teaching in April 2005. Whilst in Belfast she completed a Masters in Sonic Arts at Queens University, learning about sound with computers, and she concentrated on creating experimental soundtracks to short films. From November 2006 she will be living and teaching in Berlin.