Jaime Jones is Lecturer in Ethnomusicology and current Head of School at University College Dublin, where she teaches modules on world musics, ethnomusicology, Indian music, popular music, music and religion, and film music. Before turning to the study of ethnomusicology, Jaime trained as a pianist and composer in New York and Chicago. She completed her PhD in ethnomusicology at the University of Chicago in 2009.
Her dissertation, entitled Performing the Sacred: Song, Genre, and Aesthetics in Bhakti, was based on field research funded by a Fulbright grant. Up until this year, her work has focused on music and religion in India. Her monograph, which addresses the performance and positioning of devotional Hindu musics, is forthcoming. Recent publications include the chapter ‘Music, History and the Sacred in South Asia’ in the Cambridge History of World Music, which came out in December 2013, and her 2015 article ‘Singing the Way: Music as Pilgrimage in Maharashtra’ in Ethnomusicology Ireland, Issue 3. Jaime’s current research projects engage Dublin as urban space and as cosmopolitan musical scene. This work focuses primarily on punk and underground rock communities, and investigates ideas regarding space, place, and the local. In addition to her academic work, Jaime recently finished her term as Chair of the International Council for Traditional Music, Ireland. She is the co-founder of the Dublin Gamelan Orchestra, currently housed in the National Concert Hall of Ireland.