Deborah Cheetham has worked as a professional opera singer, director and producer of plays. In 1996, the Olympic Arts Festival commissioned Cheetham to write and perform a play, 'White Baptist Abba Fan' for the 1997 Festival of the Dreaming. Cheetham has performed in Australia and around the world. In 2000, Cheetam performed her commissioned piece: Dali Mana Gamarada, at the Sydney Olympics as a welcome to country during the Opening Ceremony.
In September 2011 the University of Melbourne, Faculty of the VCA and Music announced that Deborah Cheetham was appointed Head of the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts at the Faculty.
In 2014, Deborah was awarded Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), for "distinguished service to the performing arts as an opera singer, composer and artistic director, to the development of Indigenous artists, and to innovation in performance".
Deborah was appointed the 2019 Kinnane Scholar in Residence at The University of Queensland, and composed Eumeralla, A War Requiem for Peace, to honour the United Nations Year of Indigenous Languages, 2019.
In 2023, she was appointed inaugural Elizabeth Todd Chair of Vocal Studies at Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
