Niall Keegan

Niall Keegan is a traditional flute player and academic working in the fields of traditional music studies and ethnomusicology at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick. His research profile is marked by a broad and innovative range of interests and outputs, many of which take the form of performance‑based research. These include an extensive record of concert performances, CD recordings, and ambitious curatorial projects that bring together Irish traditional music with classical, jazz, AI‑generated music, and other diverse musical traditions.

Most recently, he has presented a collaborative performance bringing together Ethiopian and Irish traditional musicians at the University of Addis Ababa, alongside an ensemble performance of Irish traditional music with Loeric, a probabilistic, rule‑based AI music performance system.

Alongside this practice‑led work, Niall’s more conventional academic research focuses on traditional music studies and the role of language in the structure, representation, and social life of music. He is particularly interested in the ways discourse about music shapes notions of identity and gender, as well as influencing musical sound itself.