DkIT Musical Anthropology Pod Cast
30 August 2024Dr Kayla Rush, a lecturer in the Department of Creative Arts Media and Music at DkIT, recently hosted an episode of the Artery Podcast Series, exploring issues of authorship and the relational in art. Artery is a podcast organised by Iza Kavedžija (University of Cambridge) and Robert Simpkins (SOAS, London) and each episode of this collaborative podcast series involves an anthropologist, specialising in a particular cultural context, in conversation with an artist of their choosing. For this episode, Dr Rush spoke with Dr Adèle Commins, Head of Department of Creative Arts, Media and Music at DkIT, and Dr Daithí Kearney, Co-Director of the Creative Arts Research Centre at DkIT.
The podcast episode explores the artistic endeavours of Commins and Kearney, recognising how these activities influence curriculum development and classroom practice, while also connecting with a wider community. Elements explored include activities with the Oriel Traditional Orchestra, who are an ensemble in residence at DkIT, plans for the 2024 centenary of the death of Irish-born composer Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, and a project with Ceolta Sí - a community performing group in east Cork. They also chat about their involvement in the production Brigid, Lady of Light, which was staged earlier this year in An Táin Arts Centre and funded by Louth County Council as part of the Brigid1500 celebrations.
Dr Kayla Rush is an assistant lecturer in music at Dundalk Institute of Technology. An anthropologist of art, music, and performance, her current research examines private, fee-paying rock music schools in global perspective. She previously held a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship, supporting ethnographic research with Rock Jam, a private music education organisation in Ireland. Her work has appeared in Borderlands, Liminalities, Feminist Anthropology, Journal of Popular Music Education, and IASPM Journal, among others. She is the author of The Cracked Art World: Conflict, Austerity, and Community Arts in Northern Ireland (Berghahn, 2022). She is also a recognized teacher and practitioner of creative ethnography, with a particular interest in ethnographic science fiction.
Musicologist Dr Adèle Commins is a leading scholar on Irish-born composer Sir Charles Villiers Stanford. As an artist, her recordings include contributions to an album of Irish piano accordion music released by Comhaltas in 2014 and vocal soloist on an album by Irish composer Sr Marie Dunne in 2015 and her compositions featured in the seminal publications Tunes from the Women (2023) and the recording Oidhreacht Eochaille by Ceolta Sí (2020). Ethnomusicologist and geographer Dr Daithí Kearney has toured and recorded as a musician, singer and dancer with a number of groups including Siamsa Tíre and recordings include Midleton Rare (2012) with accordion player John Cronin. He wrote and produced the musical To Stay or Leave (2005, 2015) and his compositions have been recorded by groups including Nuada (2004) and Ceolta Sí (2020). As a composer, he has received commissions funded by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltachts and Cork County Council.
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