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DkIT Music Researcher Awarded BFE Student Bursary

29 April 2019

DkIT postgraduate researcher Stephanie Caffrey has been awarded the British Forum for Ethnomusicology Student Bursary at the recent BFE Annual Conference which was held at the University of Aberdeen.



Stephanie, a student in the Department of Creative Arts, Media and Music and a member of the Creative Arts Research Centre is currently undertaking an MA by Research that critically examines the production processes in albums recorded by the internationally successful Dundalk band The Corrs under the supervision of Dr Daithi Kearney and Sean Keegan. Her research project is critically analysing and evaluating the music production techniques implemented on the Corrs albums.

Stephanie’s research will also critically consider the role of recording technology combined with the impact of music producers, collaborative songwriters and guest musicians on these recordings and also engages with the soundscape of the Corrs within its cultural context, critically examining the impact of social, cultural and economic change on indigenous Irish musical tastes and the global market for Irish musical acts.

For the BFE Annual Conference, Stephanie presented a paper entitled ‘To do it better or to understand it better?: Reflections on working as both a performer and researcher in the field’.

She critically considered responsibilities, skills and roles of the music producer with reflections on her own training. While modern music production education offered by third level institutes has become a popular training path for prospective music students, overtaking the traditional studio apprenticeship model in recent years, the understanding of the producer as a performer is an area little explored or understood and Stephanie’s research provides timely insights in light of recent IMRO reports on the value of the music industry to the Irish economy.

Stephanie is a graduate of the BA (Hons) Production of Music and Audio programme at Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT). She also holds a Higher National Diploma in Music Production from Ballyfermot College of Further Education, Dublin and Diploma in Sound Therapy from the Centre of Excellence. She has developed productions spanning many genres of music and audio/visual projects and is an active music producer, musician and songwriter. Her practice applies the use of modern technology via computers and sound equipment. She is a sound engineer for a variety of groups including LMFM Radio, Jass Foley Media, Na Píobairí Uilleann, the Spirit Store and Sounding the Feminists. She has previously presented at conferences including the SMI/ICTM Postgraduate Conference.


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BA (Hons) Production of Music and Audio

 

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