The Island Lecture Series December lecture is Tuesday, December 11, at 7 p.m. in the SDU Main Building Faculty Lounge on the UPEI campus, and will feature Dr. Kate Bevan-Baker speaking about “Space and Place in Musical Identity on PEI: A Sonic Habitus.” A culture is often defined by its music, language, and traditions that are passed down from one generation to the next. This lecture maps out Irish sonic territories across PEI and explore the musical place and mobility of the music's performers and listeners. Traditional music plays a pivotal role in the maintenance of lifeworlds of Irish settlers and their ancestors. Drawing primarily from Pierre Bourdieu's celebrated Habitus theory, this lecture explores the importance of investigating traditional music within the cultural lifeworlds of its performers in order to achieve a comprehensive understanding of PEI's unique soundscape. Focusing on cultural memory and a collective sense of place, migration history from Ireland to PEI is also explored, concentrating on ethnic fade and the recent surge of musical hybridity and transculturation that presently exists.  Newfoundland-born Kate Bevan-Baker holds violin performance degrees from Memorial and McGill Universities, and a PhD specializing in Irish Music on PEI from Concordia University where she was a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Scholar. She was the winner of Concordia University's Doctoral Thesis Defense Award in 2018, and the recipient of the inaugural Rhona Richman Kenneally Award for the top PhD paper at the Canadian Association for Irish Studies conference in 2018. Kate’s music performance career has taken her to Russia, across Canada twice with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, to China for the 2010 World Expo with rock band Hey Rosetta!, the 2010 JUNO Awards performing with Michael Bublé, as well as playing with symphony orchestras and chamber groups across Canada. She has been featured on many nationwide radio and television broadcasts, and can be heard on over thirty CDs, videogame, and movie soundtracks. Kate currently teaches at the Siamsa School of Irish music in Montréal, lectures at Concordia University at the School of Irish Studies, and balances an active performance and teaching schedule.  Admission to the lecture is free and everyone is welcome to attend. The next lecture is scheduled for January 15, 2019. Mark your calendars!  For more information, please contact Laurie at iis@upei.ca or (902) 894-2881.