Earlier this month, Laudan Nooshin visited the Music Department at University College Cork, Ireland, to present a research seminar entitled ‘Re-Imagining Musical Difference: Creative Process, Alterity and “Improvisation” in Iranian Music from Classical to Jazz’. Drawn from her ongoing research on Iranian music, the presentation explored the various ways in which the concept of ‘improvisation’ has been understood, constructed and imagined in Iran. The audience included both undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as staff from the Music Department at UCC.