Leah Bernini Cronin, PhD, MA, MA

Irish fiddle player, teacher, ethnomusicologist

private lessons

Leah has been teaching Irish fiddle, violin, ensembles, and master classes to students of all ages since 2003. Currently, she teaches private Irish traditional fiddle lessons, as well as a community Irish Music Club at Granville Center for the Arts.

Group classes

Leah currently runs a community Irish Music Club at the Granville Center for the Arts, and is the bandleader for Celts Crossing. She teaches master classes for the Denison Suzuki Program, and taught Denison University's fiddle ensemble.

Performance

Leah leads the Irish folk/rock band, Celts Crossing, and performs Irish and Celtic fiddle in a variety of solo, duet, and trios throughout central Ohio.

St. patrick’s Day performances

Leah performs annually with her longtime band, Celts Crossing (est. 2002) around St. Patrick’s Day. In March 2026, you can catch them at Three Tigers Brewing, Otterbein Senior Life, The Barn in Zanesville, and other local venues and schools.

In 2025, Leah performed with Leah & Friends, “Tunes and Tales” by the Newark Granville Symphony Orchestra, Licking County Library; Weasel Boy Brewing with Celts Crossing; “Irish Community Ceili” at the Granville Center for the Arts with Celts Crossing and her students; Middleton Senior Living and Otterbein Granville SeniorLife Community with Celts Crossing, and the Granville Parent Co-Operative Preschool.

all photographs courtesy of Olivia Boucher

Volunteer Work

Leah is the current President of the Granville Parent Co-Operative Preschool, where she has also previously served as President-Elect and Social Media Coordinator. Since 2023, she has been a member of the Granville Arts Commission board and currently holds the position of Secretary. Leah also volunteers year-round with Pollinator Pathway of Licking County.

Leah holds a PhD in Ethnomusicology as well as MAs in Irish Traditional Music Performance and Ethnomusicology, all from from the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick in Ireland.

She also holds a BM in Commercial Music Performance and Music Business from Belmont University in Nashville, TN. 

The Neoliberalisation of Cultural Production: An Ethnography of Professional Irish Traditional Music

Selected publications and papers

(2016) The Neoliberalisation of Cultural Production: An Ethnography of Professional Irish Traditional Music, University of Limerick, Doctoral dissertation.

(2020) “Off the record: Irish traditional musicians and the music industry” Ón gCos go Cluas - From Dancing to Listening, Voices from the North Atlantic Fiddle Convention conference held in Derry City, 2012, Edited by Liz Doherty and Fintan Vallely. ISBN 978-0-9511569-9-5. p.218.

(2015) "Capitalism and Resistance in Professional Irish Music" (2015) FocaalBlog, Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology, Apr 9.

(2017) “Success in the Culture Industries: Entrepreneurial Neoliberal Rhetoric and Resilience” Irish Council for Traditional Music – World Conference, Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, Limerick, Ireland.

(2016) "Navigating the Neoliberal Music Industry: A Case for Resilience" Working in Music Conference, Glasgow, Scotland.

(2014) '“I Want the Moon”: Negotiating Capitalism and Creativity in the Commercial Music Industry through Discursive Acts of Resistance" Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference, Music and Labour, Pittsburgh, USA.

see all

Academic media

PhD fieldwork videos

PhD fieldwork photos