Georgia Southern University to host Global Distinguished Professor of Music

March 26, 2014

Georgia Southern University welcomes Mick Moloney, Ph.D., the Global Distinguished Professor of Music at New York University, as he visits campus April 1-2 as part of the 2014 Spring Speaker Series.

Moloney’s first lecture will is scheduled for 7 p.m. April 1 in the Carter Recital Hall in the Foy Building, 84 Georgia Avenue. During the lecture, “Irish and African Roots of American Music,” Moloney reveals how African and Irish musical traditions blended together in the Blue Ridge region of Appalachia to power forward the development of a distinctive American musical tradition.

The second lecture, “If it Weren’t for the Irish and the Jews,” is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. April 2 also in the Carter Recital Hall. The lecture focuses on how Irish and Jewish musicians and impresarios collaborated in and beyond the tenements of New York City to forge much of what we call Tin Pan Alley and the American Popular Songbook.

Moloney is celebrated internationally as the preeminent expert on Irish music in America and holds a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. His academic reputation as a folklorist and ethnomusicologist is enhanced by his popular status as a musical performer and recording artist. In addition to being the Global Distinguished Professor of Music and a professor of Irish studies at New York University, Moloney is also a folk-life advisor to one of the country’s most respected and beloved public entities, the Smithsonian Institution.

Both lectures are free and open to the public. The lectures are sponsored by the Multicultural Student Center, The Center for Irish Research and Teaching and the Campus Life Enrichment Committee.

Georgia Southern University, a Carnegie Doctoral/Research University founded in 1906, offers 125 degree programs serving more than 20,500 students. Through eight colleges, the University offers bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs built on more than a century of academic achievement.  Georgia Southern is recognized for its student-centered approach to education. Visit: www.georgiasouthern.edu.