“Part of my research will be on Irish folk music, so it’s such a blessing to be in the country and have those resources!” Jenna looks forward to studying Ethnomusicology at UL
When it comes to studying, Jenna is quite the machine: she has a degree in voice performance, another in music education, and a minor in Jewish studies just to round it off! Now, she’s preparing to come to Limerick to study a master’s in Ethnomusicology, and we’re excited to find out what that entails…
Name: Jenna
From: Indiana, USA
Course: MA Ethnomusicology
University: University of Limerick
Fun fact: Jenna is a singer and also plays the piano!
Ethnomusicology: what’s it all about?
“I like to think of ethnomusicology as the anthropology of music. It studies what we define as music, how people play a part in that and what we consider to be music in our daily lives. Through my university, I studied at the Jacobs School of Music, which is a pretty prestigious conservatory. I felt like the education I was receiving was like an aesthetic product, the ‘perfect’ type of music. This got my thinking: does this ‘other’ any different types of music? I wanted to explore this further, so I looked into ethnomusicology programmes to delve deeper into how we think of music.”
Preparing to go from the US to UL!
“I’ve been fortunate enough to travel before but I’ve never lived outside of the US, so I’ve been speaking to a friend in London a lot and trying to network with people in Ireland. My boyfriend is from Argentina and moved to the US a year ago, so I’ve been asking him for tips! He’s taught me that patience is key and that it’s OK to take time to acclimate to a new environment.
I’m just so excited to meet the music faculty: the people I talked to last summer who helped me to figure out where to do my MA. They seemed like lovely human beings, and I’m looking forward to diving into research with them! I know I’ll be homesick for a little bit, but my sister is also moving abroad in September to study in Manchester, so I’m not in it alone. I’ve also found the group for students travelling from the US on the CampusConnect app really useful. I had lots of questions about banking and travel, so discussing it with others from the same perspective helps a lot.”
A wide range of work experience
“I have a part-time job as a healthcare worker in a senior nursing home, which was very intense last summer. At the moment, I’m also working as a summer camp counsellor in a thematic camp, which means we have different activities each week. Last week we did a cooking camp and made things like pop tarts, noodles and gnocchi!
Before that I was in opera performances at university and also did musical theatre and jazz. I’ve not been doing lots of performing for obvious reasons, but I’ve been busy doing student teaching out in a middle school. I was teaching a broad music curriculum to 5th-8th grade, as well as choir classes. I loved it because, due to hybrid learning, we had more flexibility to be creative with lesson content. I think in the future I’d like to get a PhD and work in higher education or for a cultural institution.”
Preparing for her upcoming journey to Ireland, Jenna explains what she’s most looking forward to: “part of my research will be on Irish folk music, and because I’m Jewish I decided to research the intersection between Jewish and Irish folk music, so it’s such a blessing to be in the country and have those resources!”
