UCD School of Music
Scoil an Cheoil UCD
Dr Jaime Jones
B.A., M.MUS.,PH.D.
Jaime Jones is Lecturer in Ethnomusicology in the School of Music, and her research centres on the musical traditions of South Asia. Before turning to the study of ethnomusicology, she trained as a pianist and composer at the Hartt School of Music and Sarah Lawrence College. She completed a Masters in Composition at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and had works performed in Amherst, New York, Chicago, and the Aspen Music Festival.
Jaime earned her PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of Chicago in 2009, and her thesis was completed under the advisement of Philip Bohlman, Martin Stokes, and Martin Clayton. Her doctoral research, for which she received a Fulbright grant, was based on nearly two years of fieldwork in Maharashtra, India, where she worked closely with musicians of the Varkari devotional tradition. Her thesis examined ritual genres of Hinduism, and focused on the ways in which the aesthetic systems of these genres inscribe devotional efficacy, identity, and cultural resonance within the larger context of a changing Indian modernity, sustaining questions regarding the role of performance in the sacred by looking at how and why musical practice and worship coincide.
In UCD, Jaime teaches modules on world musics, ethnomusicology, Indian music, popular music, music and religion, and film music. She serves on the Teaching and Learning committee for the College of Arts and Celtic Studies, and acts as a liaison with music students.
Publications
Forthcoming:
“Word and Song : Performing Devotion in South Asia,” Cambridge History of World Music. Cambridge University
Press.
2005 “The Aesthetics of Gandhi’s Vision: idioms of Utopia in practice,” New Quest: a quarterly journal of participative inquiry. 159 (January-March 2005); 50-65.
Selected Papers and Presentations
2009 “Remaking the Sacred: Syncretism, Genre, and Status in Varkari Performance,” South Asia Music and Dance Forum, Institute for Musicological Research, University of London, London, UK
2009 “Realizing Audience: The Listener, Performers, and Overhearers of Bhajan,” Listening Workshop, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
2009 “Singing the Way: The Time and Performance of Pilgrimage,” European Seminar in Ethnomusicology Annual Conference, Milton Keynes, UK
2009 “Circulating Divinities: the sound and sound objects of devotion,” Society for Musicology in Ireland Annual Conference, Dublin
2007 “Devotional Vernacular: Virtuosity and Genre in Varkari Performance Practice,” Theory and Practice in South Asia Series, University of Chicago
2007 “Making Little Great: Music and Mobility of an Indian
Devotional Vernacular,” Annual Meeting of the British Forum
for Ethnomusicology, Newcastle-upon-Thyne, UK
2006 “Vari: Music and Performance of Pilgrimage,” Theory and
Practice in South Asia Series, University of Chicago
2006 “The Sung Journey: Music on the Path to God,” Midwest
Conference for the Society for Ethnomusicology, Columbus, Ohio
2003 “The Aesthetics of Spectacle in Hindi Film,” Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology National Conference, Miami, Florida
2002 “A Relevant Sublime: Temporality and Aesthetics in early
Minimalism,” British Forum for Ethnomusicology, Edinburgh
Professional Associations
Society for Ethnomusicology
European Seminar in Ethnomusicology
British Forum for Ethnomusicology
International Council for Traditional Music (Ireland)
Society for Musicology in Ireland