Singer, scholar, stage director, producer, lecturer, teacher and cultural activist, James Flannery has been called "Irish-America's
Renaissance Man". A specialist in the dramatic work of W.B. Yeats, in 1988 he founded the W.B. Yeats Foundation. From 1989 to 1993
he was the Executive Director of the Yeats International Theatre Festival at the world-famous Abbey Theatre, the National Theatre of
Ireland. His Yeats Festival productions of fourteen of Yeats's challenging plays won critical acclaim and established Yeats's
reputation as a seminal figure in modern Irish theater.
James Flannery's work as a singer also has received considerable recognition. He has given concerts widely in the United States and abroad, including a July 1997 recital at the Dublin residence of American Ambassador to Ireland, Jean Kennedy Smith. That concert was made into a film entitled "Ireland, Mother Ireland" which has been broadcast on PBS. In 1997 he published a book/recording, Dear Harp of My Country: The Irish Melodies of Thomas Moore, which received rave reviews as well as the endorsements of Nobel Prizewinning poet Seamus Heaney and Bill Whelan, the Grammy Award-winning composer of Riverdance. Dear Harp of My Country is the first of a four part series exploring the Irish and Irish American song tradition.
Among his other publications, Dr. Flannery is the author of a definitive study, W.B. Yeats and the Idea of a Theatre: The Early Abbey Theatre in Theory and Practice (Yale 1976, 1989), and has contributed to many leading journals including The New York Times, Performing Arts Journal and the Irish University Review. He has directed over sixty productions, including twenty-two of Yeats's plays at leading professional theatres in Ireland, Canada and the United States. He has headed theater programs at the University of Ottawa, the University of Rhode Island and Emory University, where he holds a distinguished chair as Winship Professor of the Arts and Humanities. His efforts to involve professional artists in these programs, especially in the area of experimental research, have won wide critical attention.
Listed in Who's Who in America, James Flannery has five times been named to Irish America Magazine's list of the one hundred most prominent Irish-Americans. In 1993 he was given the prestigious Wild Geese Award for Outstanding Contributions to Irish Culture. In the same year he was awarded an honorary doctorate by his alma mater Trinity College (Hartford). In 1997 he was named an Honorary Professor by his other alma mater Trinity College, Dublin. He has been listed in the Oxford Companion to Irish Literature for his work as a scholar-artist on the plays of Yeats and the songs of Thomas Moore. The University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, named him a Visiting Professor in the year 2000 and, in 2001, awarded him an honorary doctorate for his many contributions to Irish culture. In the same year he was awarded a Distinguished Fulbright Scholarship to work with the University of Ulster in developing a school for performing arts.
In the year 2002 he was honored with a Governor's Award in the Humanities by the Georgia Humanities Council for his work promoting Irish culture and its connection with the culture of the American South.
James Flannery's work as a singer also has received considerable recognition. He has given concerts widely in the United States and abroad, including a July 1997 recital at the Dublin residence of American Ambassador to Ireland, Jean Kennedy Smith. That concert was made into a film entitled "Ireland, Mother Ireland" which has been broadcast on PBS. In 1997 he published a book/recording, Dear Harp of My Country: The Irish Melodies of Thomas Moore, which received rave reviews as well as the endorsements of Nobel Prizewinning poet Seamus Heaney and Bill Whelan, the Grammy Award-winning composer of Riverdance. Dear Harp of My Country is the first of a four part series exploring the Irish and Irish American song tradition.
Among his other publications, Dr. Flannery is the author of a definitive study, W.B. Yeats and the Idea of a Theatre: The Early Abbey Theatre in Theory and Practice (Yale 1976, 1989), and has contributed to many leading journals including The New York Times, Performing Arts Journal and the Irish University Review. He has directed over sixty productions, including twenty-two of Yeats's plays at leading professional theatres in Ireland, Canada and the United States. He has headed theater programs at the University of Ottawa, the University of Rhode Island and Emory University, where he holds a distinguished chair as Winship Professor of the Arts and Humanities. His efforts to involve professional artists in these programs, especially in the area of experimental research, have won wide critical attention.
Listed in Who's Who in America, James Flannery has five times been named to Irish America Magazine's list of the one hundred most prominent Irish-Americans. In 1993 he was given the prestigious Wild Geese Award for Outstanding Contributions to Irish Culture. In the same year he was awarded an honorary doctorate by his alma mater Trinity College (Hartford). In 1997 he was named an Honorary Professor by his other alma mater Trinity College, Dublin. He has been listed in the Oxford Companion to Irish Literature for his work as a scholar-artist on the plays of Yeats and the songs of Thomas Moore. The University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, named him a Visiting Professor in the year 2000 and, in 2001, awarded him an honorary doctorate for his many contributions to Irish culture. In the same year he was awarded a Distinguished Fulbright Scholarship to work with the University of Ulster in developing a school for performing arts.
In the year 2002 he was honored with a Governor's Award in the Humanities by the Georgia Humanities Council for his work promoting Irish culture and its connection with the culture of the American South.