Introducing Zohra Coday

by Mary Hendriksen

Aprill 16, 2026

“Since the pandemic, there has been a resurgence in the arts—within literature, music, and the visual arts,” says Zohra Coday, programming associate at New York City’s Irish Arts Center. “An important part of this resurgence is cross-cultural explorations—and, at the Center, we are proud to be at the forefront of those explorations.”

Just two of many cross-cultural events and performances on the Center’s schedule this spring are a conversation with the novelist Cauvery Madhavan  (The Inheritance) and North Star (June 3-21), a live music and spoken word performance inspired by the speeches of abolitionist Frederick Douglass during his historic visit to Belfast in 1845.

These events and performances are the tangible evidence of the statement on the Irish Arts Center’s website that, “The Center is taking a larger place in a world where borders and allegiances are less important than a common humanity and triumph of the human spirit.”

Zohra herself is a life-long student and practitioner of cross-cultural explorations.

Growing up in St. Louis, Missouri, with both Indian and African American heritage, she first became captivated by Irish dance and music by a performance at her preschool by dancers and musicians from St. Louis Irish Arts.

At age 8, she attended the Irish Arts’ summer camp and began to learn  competive Irish dance—advancing in that art form by way of lessons and competition through high school.

Also at that first summer camp, Zohra had lessons in the tin whistle. She went on to add the violin, the fiddle, and then, at age 12, the concertina. The concertina is now her instrument of choice, as well as the instrument in which she gives lessons at the Irish Arts Center and online.

See this  Video link on Instagram 

After high school, Zohra continued her passions and explorations at Webster University.There she was a sociology major with a minor in international human rights and biology; yet, as she completed her  bachelor’s degree, she still felt a calling for Irish arts and decided to pursue her study of Irish music.

Zohra was accepted to the highly competitive master’s program at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick. She describes immersion in that world in the Fall of 2019 as both a bit daunting and galvanizing.

“The standard of skill among both teachers and fellow students—half of whom were Irish and the other half international—was of a high caliber. It was a pleasure to learn and play alongside them.” 

At Limerick, one of her class projects was a filmed dance titled “Convergence”—one featuring improvised Irish and Indian dancing. [Watch on Zohra’s Instagram account here.]

That collaboration was just the start of her cross-cultural examination. Last year, she collaborated with an Indian music producer to produce the Irish-Indian fusion track Exodus. 

While her physical time at the Academy was cut short by the pandemic, Zohra continued with lessons by her teachers, particularly Tommy Fitzharris, via Zoom back in St. Louis.

After receiving her masters’ degree, she moved to New York City in 2022 and joined the staff of the Irish Arts Center while maintaining an active schedule of performances, teaching, and lessons for herself.

As this article is posted, Zohra is just back to New York  after teaching at a weekend-long concertina festival, Consairtin, in Ennis, Co. Clare.