Research and Publications
Journal Article – ‘There are no other women making this kind of music’: The intersections of gender, musical role, and musician location through jazz promotion in Ireland.
By Dr Sarah Raine
In this article, I highlight how promoters are both reinforcing and attempting to intervene into gendered barriers to accessing a successful jazz career on the island of Ireland. This discussion is based on initial data from an ongoing four-year Research Ireland funded project, Improvising Across Boundaries (2023-2027), and provides clear evidence of a gender imbalance at four major festivals and the largest promoter of improvised music in Ireland over eight years. The data analysis tracks musical role, band leadership, and the scheduling of Ireland-based and international performers in relation to gender, adding to the growing body of scholarly evidence of the underrepresentation of non-men instrumentalists in jazz. I draw on interviews with promoters and musicians, ethnographic engagements, and an island-wide improvising musician survey to highlight ongoing good promoter practice and the limitations of promoter action. Whilst external factors create complex issues for promoters to overcome, general patterns of promoter reliance on women vocalists and international instrumentalists work to reiterate gendered musical roles that are dominant in jazz and to devalue women and non-binary musicians based in Ireland.
To cite this: Raine, Sarah (2026) ‘“There are no other women making this kind of music’: The intersections of gender, musical role, and musician location through jazz promotion in Ireland’, Jazz Research Journal 18(1-2), pp. 69-98.
Editorial – Gender in contemporary jazz worlds – from discriminatory processes to measures making a difference.
By Professor Marie Buscatto and Dr Sarah Raine
Editorial for a special issue of Jazz Research Journal titled, Does it work?: ‘Fighting’ gender-based sexism, discrimination, and violence in jazz and improvised music
This special issue includes the following articles:
‘Street justice’, ‘mental strength’, and double standards: Gendered relations in a European jazz educational project – by Guro Gravem Johansen, Karlstads Universitet (Sweden)
A bumpy road towards equality. Feminising jazz worlds through positive discrimination – by Marie Buscatto, IDHE.S, University of Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne and Ionela Roharik, CESPRA, Cnrs – Ehess (France)
‘There are no other women making this kind of music’: The intersections of gender, musical role, and musician location in jazz promotion in Ireland – by Sarah Raine, School of Music, University College Dublin (Ireland)
Rethinking inclusion work in Norwegian jazz education through student-led participatory action – by Liv Quist Christensen and Jennifer Branlat, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Norway)
From Silence to Resonance: A Situated Perspective on Sexual Harassment in Jazz Education – by Beatriz Nunes, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal)
Reconfiguring Access and Creativity in Improvised Music: Practice-Based Perspectives from Five Women and Non-Binary Musicians – by Una MacGlone, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (UK) and Raymond MacDonald, University of Edinburgh (UK)
But Can She Play?: A Preliminary Investigation into the Influence of Visual Stereotypes on Audience Perceptions of Jazz Performance – Monika Herzig, Jam Music Lab Private University, Vienna (Austria) and Robert Goldstone, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, and Program in Cognitive Science, Indiana University (USA)
Improvising Intersecting Identities in Jazz: An Autoethnographic Account of an Asian Woman Jazz Violinist – Pei Ann Yeoh, Universiti Teknologi MARA (Malaysia)
To cite this editorial: Buscatto, Marie and Sarah Raine (2026) ‘Editorial: Gender in contemporary jazz worlds – from discriminatory processes to measures making a difference‘, Jazz Research Journal 18(1-2), pp. 5-17.
IMC Jazz Camp for Girls (UCD)
Save the date! More information to come soon.
Please keep an eye on the IMC website/socials and our project Bluesky/Insta for announcements.
IMC Presents Jazz Camp for Girls, UCD
Jazz Camp for Girls comes to UCD School of Music this summer! During this 3 day music summer camp, girls aged 11-15 will explore jazz music and improvisation in a supportive and fun environment that also celebrates the role of women in music.
Led by professional musicians, the camps are designed to give girls their first experience of improvised music and develop confidence in their personal musicality and creative expression.
This European-wide initiative is presented in Ireland by The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon funded Improvised Music Company.
To apply and for more information, click here.
We are excited to be able to support this summer school as part of our 4-year (Irish Research Council-Science Foundation Ireland funded) Pathway project and to contribute to the dedication of our project partner – Improvised Music Company – to nurturing improvised music in Ireland.
Improvising Across Boundaries: An introduction to the research project at New Music Dublin
The Iveagh Room at the NCH Café, National Concert Hall, Dublin
During this informal session, members of the IAB team will introduce plans for the four-year SFI-IRC (Science Foundation Ireland-Irish Research Council) funded research project which began in September 2023 and will run until August 2027. Led by Dr Sarah Raine (School of Music UCD), in partnership with the Improvised Music Company, and collaborating with fifteen musician partners, Improvising Across Boundaries aims to explore the experiences of women and gender-minority improvising instrumentalists in Ireland.
The IAB team invites you to join them at New Music Dublin on to find out more about the project, and to share experiences of improvised music on the island of Ireland.
Ticket info: Free event.