About Us

“Cuala’s work brings consciousness that can transform a young woman’s life: she’s never been shown or asked to do anything like this before.”

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Susan McKeown

FOUNDER & DIRECTOR

Cuala’s founder and executive director Susan McKeown had a degree in English and Philosophy from UCD and had toured Europe with bands when she won a scholarship to the American Music and Dramatic Academy and left Ireland in 1990.
In a distinguished career, she has performed with Pete Seeger, Natalie Merchant, Billy Bragg, Arlo Guthrie, Mamadou Diabate, Mali’s Ensemble Tartit, Queens band Mariachi Réal de Mexico, Lúnasa, Flook and The Klezmatics, with whom she won a Grammy Award performing lyrics by Woody Guthrie. She has recorded mariachi music, klezmer music, African music, Celtic music, and contemporary songwriting, and has performed at Glastonbury, The Edinburgh Festival, Carnegie Hall and the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Hers is the woman’s voice singing on the audio recording in the Irish apartment of New York’s Tenement Museum. 
Susan began her songwriting career as part of the songwriting community at Sin-É Café on St. Mark’s Place and her first album Bones was commercially released in 1996. More albums followed including Prophecy in 2002 featuring two duets with Natalie Merchant: Susan’s setting of Emily Dickinson’s poem Because I could not stop for Death, and one of her best known songs River, commissioned by Liverpool’s Hope University for an album of songs of hope for Ireland.
She conceived, arranged and produced the album Songs from the East Village (2010) for her daughter’s public school that was featured on NPR and raised $30,000+ for the school’s language and arts programs. Her album Singing in the Dark (2010), with an introductory essay by author and Johns Hopkins Head of Psychiatry Kay Jamison, explored creativity and madness through lyrics by poets who lived with depression, mania and addiction. Belong (2012) features McKeown’s own songs such as ‘On the Bridge to Williamsburg‘ (a duet with Declan O’Rourke), ‘Everything We Had Was Good‘ (which reached #1 on the U.S. Folk Music chart) and ‘Lullaby of Manhattan‘.
In 2014 Susan received first class honors for her post-graduate studies in culture as an economic driver at DCU business school. In 2016 she produced New York’s biggest Irish cultural festival CualaNYC, commemorating the 1916 Rising celebrating Irish New York. She established Cuala as a nonprofit in 2017.
 
Susan raised her daughter Róisín McKeown on the Lower East Side. 

Learn more about our founder here.

Eddie Rodriguez

Co-Director

Cuala’s Lower East Side co-director Eddie Rodriguez is a bilingual SEI-certified history and government educator and community organizer with a background in planning and strategy. Eddie grew up in Jacob Riis Houses where he is an active community organizer and mentor to local youth.

Cuala Foundation (New York) Board

Siobhán Ní Chiobháin

Siobhán Ní Chiobháin is a fluent Gaeilgeoir and Creative Content Producer from Dingle, Co. Kerry, currently based in New York.  She has produced bilingual TV and Radio programming and documentaries for BBC, TG4, RTÉ, UTV, Raidio na Gaeltachta among others. She produced ‘Lost for Words’ which won Best Musical Short at the New York Independent Film Festival. Siobhan has worked with various clients including Earth’s Call, Pepsi, Seaworld, East Village Playhouse and The CityKids Foundation.

In 2019, Siobhán was selected as one of the Irish Echo’s Top 40 Under 40, an award that recognizes exceptional Irish and Irish American young leaders from across the US.  She was also awarded The Irish Echo’s People’s Choice Award. In 2014, Siobhán was selected as a ‘One to Watch’, one of Television’s ‘Best and Brightest’ by the prestigious Guardian Edinburgh International TV Festival.

Siobhan has a passion for social impact and has worked and volunteered with various charities including Amnesty International and The Samaritans.  She teaches Irish Language classes and organizes Irish Language Events in NYC.

Siobhán has a degree in Media Arts from the Dublin Institute for Technology and a Postgraduate Certificate in Digital Media Communications from Ulster University. Siobhán is delighted to be on the board of Cuala Foundation.

June Kosloff

June Kosloff is an artist, curator and former music business executive with over 15 years’ experience in marketing and sales focusing on artist development. She has worked with the Verve, David Bowie, Ben Harper, Cracker, Janet Jackson and Irish traditional music group Altan, among others.

June serves as Board President of Local Project Gallery Space in Long Island City, and has curated multiple visual art shows there. She also produced the  “Music Under the 7” series from 2011 through 2016. In 2014 June co-produced the audio CD ‘Crossroads,’ featuring emerging poets and musicians from all over the globe.
As an artist, June’s work is based on the natural world: she is currently working on a variety of animal and environmental series in mixed media. Her work is in numerous private collections.

Additionally, June is the executor of art collection of her uncle, the artist Dick Lubinsky, which has been shown at Fountain House Gallery, Outsider Art Fair, American Visionary Art Museum, Erie Art Museum, and is in numerous private collections.  June and Susan met in a workshop run by Motherless Daughters, an organization that supports women who have grown up without their mothers to share their experiences of grief and loss.

Jonathan B. Lefkowitz

Jon is a lawyer who lives with his family on the Lower East Side. 

He advocates and counsels a wide range of clients, including individuals, families, and for-profit businesses, including small businesses, as well as community-based and nonprofit organizations, public charities, private foundations, and other tax-exempt entities.

He brings years of experience, legal acuity, and practical insight to businesses and nonprofit organizations at every stage of development. He is also an advisor on valuation, growth, and strategic expansion, as well as organizational restructuring, conversion, or dissolution, and counsels on a wide range of issues including human resources, labor, and employment; governance; regulatory compliance; and dispute resolution.

Michael Williams

Michael H. Williams is a lawyer who has worked by day since 2007 as General Counsel of Safe Horizon, the largest non-profit victim services agency in the United States. Michael is also Board Chair of New York Peace Institute, another New York City nonprofit that provides community-based mediation and training that empower people to find creative and durable solutions to their disputes. Michael and Susan McKeown first met at the SXSW festival in Austin, TX in 2006, where they started a lifelong friendship that later led to him helping her establish Cuala Foundation as a new nonprofit in the United States. Michael is excited about Cuala’s potential to positively impact the lives of youth through the celebration of culture. Michael is admitted to practice law in the State of New York. He received a JD from Brooklyn Law School and a BA in Sociology from Tufts University.

Cuala Foundation (Ireland) Board

Robert Ballagh

Robert Ballagh is an Irish artist whose work has been exhibited in Ireland and internationally over the course of a career spanning more than five decades. In addition to his artistic practice, he has been involved in a range of cultural, educational, and community initiatives.

Across 50 years of artistic work, Robert has always chosen to speak out instead of staying silent. He is ever ready to lend his voice to the cause of the oppressed, the abused, the misunderstood, the downtrodden, the powerless.

Robert continues to maintain an active studio practice. He has contributed to numerous cultural and civic initiatives and is widely respected for his commitment to using creativity as a force for positive social change.

Barbara Keogh

Barabara’s primary career has been rooted in administration as a Programme Manager working for the Irish Congress of Trade Unions on Economic and Social Policy, in Education & Training, and HR. In the last 6 years before her retirement, she worked in social housing. she is passionate about social justice, and loves to meet like-minded people and take on new challenges.

Our Legal Advisors

Shaffrey & Co.

Address: 10 Cornelscourt, Dublin 18, Ireland
Email: solrs@shaffrey.com
Tel: +353 (0)1 289 7772