Louise McMahon is a freelance composer and vocalist working across video games, film, television, and radio. She is a voting member of the Recording Academy and a GRAMMY U Mentor.

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Lou’s credits include vocal contributions to media soundtracks, and broadcast reports on radio. Notably, Pacific Drive: Whispers in the Woods video game trailer (2025) with Audiocreatures, where her vocal layerings are described by Polygon as a “haunting drone choir”, and she has contributed hundreds of reports to Culture File on RTÉ Lyric FM.  Lou also did vocal work for Crimesonics and Sean Rooney (Falling in Reverse). 

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She has experience in score preparation for Live Score Berlin recordings with the Film Orchestra Babelsberg, and has composed and orchestrated music that is performed by Filmorchester Babelsberg, Alex Iles, Terry Woods (Pogues), and members of Irelands leading orchestras.

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Lou produces audio stories from concept through to broadcast. This includes dialogue recording and editing, voiceover and sometimes music underscores — “Summoning Loab” and the melodies, lyrics, and performance of the radio jingle “Refunk”. Her radio work has been widely acclaimed, including coverage in The Irish Independent, which praised her visit to the Disgusting Food Museum in Berlin, Germany, as “another finger lickin’ good item in the outstanding series.” Lou has interviewed celebrities and local artists for the show, and even a virtual human named Imma, covering topics such as food, music, gaming and technology: Imma Lives, Robots of Stockholm, Cosmic Sugar Brain Candy Cyberdelics, Circuit City and many more. 

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Lou is a regular speaker at video game conferences, and her independent arts practice includes Butterfly Wars, a classical video game concept work of original small ensemble, and solo instruments to full orchestra scores. Louise is a music educator, teaching piano, guitar, and music technology.  Lou’s current talk and performance is titled: Solo Voice Choir: from independent arts practice to Pacific Drive and will feature at GameSoundCon and Games Ground 2026. 

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Genre fluid, her catalogue includes folk songs, chamber music, choral works, and solo piano pieces described as “immersive and rapturous” by Bernard Clarke (RTÉ Lyric FM). Her classical music is released under the Butterfly Wars project at the moment, it is a little pet project. Lou plays piano, guitar and percussion. 

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Appearances include Nerdic Events, Games Ground, and NERDICon, Live Score Berlin, with Butterfly Wars also showcased at the European Games Night at Devcom / Gamescom 2024, and Game Sound Con Los Angeles 2026. A publication of her folk song “Wide Eyed Lady” appears in ARC Music’s Ultimate Guide to Irish Folk and can be found in the New York University Library, the Naxos Library during its release, various University and public libraries, and digital stores internationally. Her folk music features Terry Woods; “A River” was featured on The Apprentice (TV3) and distributed with The Irish Daily Mail. 

Louise has an entertainment and production corporate membership with United Airlines for tours.