Nick Booker (he/him) is the Archivist for the CFS Folklore Archives and a staff researcher for the Ohio Humanities Project. He received his Ph.D. in musicology and ethnomusicology from The Ohio State University with an interdisciplinary specialization in folklore studies. He also holds degrees in music performance and music education from the University of Denver and the University of Northern Colorado and has taught and performed in classical, jazz, folk, and singer-songwriter contexts. His research interests include postnational and transnational musical identities, tradition, heritage, commodification, and globalization in the context of North American, British, Irish, Celtic, and Gaelic musical communities. He is focused on interactions between folk and traditional music communities in the Great Lakes region of North America and Cornwall in southwest Britain, and music from those communities has become central to his performances with his music group All Those Who Wander.

Publications

Booker, Nicholas. “Cornish Cousin Music: Celtic, Folk, and Popular Music Communities in Cornwall and North America.” Ph.D. dissertation, The Ohio State University, 2026.

Booker, Nicholas. “Oberlin-educated Guitarist Records the Music of a Forgotten Black Ohio composer.” WOSU Public Media, August 2, 2024. Classical 101. Click/tap here to access.

Booker, Nicholas. “Composer from Columbus Supports Ohio's Autistic Community and LGBTQ+ Pride.” WOSU Public Media, June 20, 2024. Classical 101. Click/tap here to access.

Booker, Nicholas. Review of Going Up the Country: Adventures in Blues Fieldwork in the 1960s, by Marina Bokelman and David Evans. Journal of American Folklore 137, no. 544 (Spring 2024): 248–249. Click/tap here to access.

Booker, Nicholas. “Ottoma dhe’n Yeth Kernewek: Cornish Language Song in North America.” The Institute of Cornish Studies: Cornish Language and Dialect (February 2024). Click/tap here to access.

Booker, Nicholas. “Homes for Cornish Folk Music in Britain and North America.” Columbus Folk Music Society A Different Strummer Newsletter (February 2024): 4–5. Click/tap here to access.

Booker, Nicholas. Review of The Berkeley Folk Music Festival & the Folk Revival on the US West Coast—An Introduction, by Northwestern University. Journal of the Society for American Music (February 26, 2024). Click/tap here to access.

Booker, Nicholas. Review of Celtic Music and Dance in Cornwall: Cornu-copia, by Lea Hagmann. Ethnomusicology Forum (February 2022). Click/tap here to access.

Booker, Nicholas. “Development and Interactions of Instructor and Student Musical Identities in a University Introductory Music Course for Non-music Majors.” Master’s thesis, University of Northern Colorado, 2021. ProQuest (AAT 28496301). Click/tap here to access.