Jody Cormack Viswanathan should know how good the South Indian music archive is at Wesleyan. She earned a Ph.D. there in ethnomusicology, concentrating in Karnatic (South Indian) music. Her late husband, T. Viswanathan, was a renowned teacher, kuzhal (bamboo flute) player, and vocalist in Karnatic music who won a National Heritage Fellowship in 1992.
So what led her to Irish music and more recently to the idea of Celtic Routes, a festival sponsored by Wesleyan’s Center for the Arts that takes place today, Sept. 10, through Saturday night, Sept. 13?
“Paul Brady, through Liam O’Flynn,” Jody Cormack Viswanathan answered over the phone from the World Music Archives at Wesleyan’s Olin Memorial Library, where she works. “Some years ago I heard a Liam O’Flynn CD playing in the background in a record shop in Yorkshire, and I ordered his ‘The Given Note’ album from Amazon.com. On a drive in my car, playing the CD, I heard ‘The Rocks of Bawn’ sung by Paul Brady, and I was blown away. I had to pull over to the side of the road.”
That fascination with Brady’s music, sparked by his guest vocal on O’Flynn’s 1995 Tara solo CD, introduced Jody to Irish music in a more serious, expanded way. But, in truth, she already had some grounding in it through exposure to Carna sean-n