Helen Phelan is Professor of Arts Practice at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance. She is an Irish Research Council recipient for her work in music, migration and the use of arts-based research methods.  A singer, she is co-founder of the female vocal ensemble Cantoral, specializing in Irish medieval chant. She is founder of the Singing and Social Inclusion research group and Chair of  IMBAS, a national network for artistic research in Ireland. Recent books include her monograph Singing the Rite to Belong: Music, Ritual and the New Irish with Oxford University Press and The Artist and Academia, co-edited with Graham Welch. She is HRI cluster lead for PART-IM: Participatory and Arts-Based Methods for involving Migrants in Health Research. 

Publications

“Sonic Citizenship: Rites and Rights of Belonging in Ireland” in Ingalls, Monique M., Swijghuisen Reigersberg, Muriel and Sherinian, Zoe C. (eds.) Making Congregational Music Local in Christian Communities Worldwide. London and New York: Routledge (2018).

Phelan H., Hortus Delicarum / Garden of Delights: A Somatic Interpretation in Müller, S.  and Pusse, T. (eds.) Ego to Eco: Mapping Shifts from Anthropocentrism to Ecocentrism. Leiden: Brill Rodopi (2018). DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004358324_002.  

Phelan H., Singing the Rite to Belong: Music, Ritual and the New Irish, Oxford: Oxford University Press (2017). DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190672225.001.0001.  http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190672225.001.0001/acprof-9780190672225

Phelan H. (2017), ‘The Untidy Playground: An Irish Congolese Case Study in Sonic Encounters with the Sacred Stranger’, Religions, 8 (11), 249.14. DOI:10.3390/rel8110249. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8110249

Phelan H., Navigatio: A Commissioned performance of song and chant from the Immram tradition,  Festival of Lifelong Learning, Limerick City Art Gallery (2017).   

Phelan H., Chappell D., Hennelly J. and Robert A.N. (2017), ‘The Irish World Music Café: Performing and Recording as Tools for Sustainable Social Integration’, Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 17.   DOI:10.15845/voices.v17i3.939. https://voices.no/index.php/voices/article/view/2338/2113