Biographical Notes
John Feeley was born in Ballinasloe, County Galway. He has been described by the Washington Post as ‘Ireland’s leading classical guitarist’, and by Michael Dervan in the Irish Times as ‘a trailblazer … when it comes to the guitar and guitar-playing in Ireland’. Feeley started his career playing popular music styles, and at 17 was considered to be ‘one of the finest musicians in Europe’ on electric guitar. Graduating from Trinity College Dublin, he studied in the United States with a number of guitarists including Oscar Ghiglia, Angel Romero and David Russel. After completing a Masters degree at the City University, New York, he taught at Memphis State University for a number of years before returning to Ireland to take up the post of Lecturer in Guitar at the Conservatory of Music, Dublin Institute of Technology.
In addition to his solo and chamber music concerts, Feeley has performed widely with orchestra—with The American Symphony at Carnegie Hall, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, the Ulster Orchestra, and the Irish Chamber Orchestra, among others. He has won a number of prizes in international competitions, including the Special Award for interpretation in the 1984 Mauro Giuliani competition, Italy. Highly regarded for his performance of new works by Irish composers, he has regularly performed at international guitar festivals, including the Bath International Guitar Festival, the Dundee International Guitar Festival, the Dublin International Guitar Festival and the Wirral International Guitar Festival. He has made recordings with K-Tel, Gael-Linn Records, CBA Classics, Ossian Records, Castle Communications and Blackbox Music. He has also recorded with The Chieftains and Montserrat Caballé.
Fran O’Rourke’s first ‘artistic’ connection with James Joyce, almost fifty years ago, was on a children’s TV programme (hosted by a ventriloquist’s dummy) when he sang a folk song with a line about ‘old mother Flipperflapper’; a variation of the line occurs in Finnegans Wake. The first copy of Ulysses which he held in his hand was a first edition—in Zürich, where he developed the habit of daily visits to Fluntern cemetery.
O’Rourke is Associate Professor of Philosophy at University College Dublin. A graduate of University College Galway he studied in Vienna, Köln, Louvain, and Leuven, where he received his PhD. He has held Fulbright and Onassis fellowships and in 2003 was Visiting Research Professor at Marquette University. He is primarily interested in the tradition of classical metaphysics and has published widely on Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and Heidegger. His book Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas was reissued by University of Notre Dame Press (2005). Allwisest Stagyrite: Joyce’s Quotations from Aristotle was published by the National Library of Ireland in 2005. He is preparing for publication a collection of essays entitled Aristotelian Interpretations, and he is completing a book on James Joyce, Aristotle, and Aquinas. He has lectured widely both on philosophical influences in James Joyce and on Joyce’s use of song; he has performed recitals of Irish songs with a Joyce connection in the National Concert Hall, Dublin (2004), and the Conservatorio, Trieste (2008). In 2012 he arranged and sponsored the restoration of James Joyce’s guitar preserved since 1966 in the Tower at Sandycove.
From James Joyce’s Chamber Music:
Strings in the earth and air
Make music sweet;
Strings by the river where
The willows meet.
….
All softly playing,
With head to the music bent,
And fingers straying
Upon an instrument.
James Joyce’s guitar (c. 1830) is widely known from a famous photograph taken in 1915 by Joyce’s friend Ottacaro Weiss in Zurich (search "James Joyce guitar"). Joyce gave the instrument to his friend Paul Ruggiero in the late ’30s. Ruggiero donated it to the Joyce Museum in Sandycove in 1966. It was restored in March 2012 by renowned luthier Gary Southwell courtesy of facilities provided by the National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks.
In addition to his solo and chamber music concerts, Feeley has performed widely with orchestra—with The American Symphony at Carnegie Hall, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, the Ulster Orchestra, and the Irish Chamber Orchestra, among others. He has won a number of prizes in international competitions, including the Special Award for interpretation in the 1984 Mauro Giuliani competition, Italy. Highly regarded for his performance of new works by Irish composers, he has regularly performed at international guitar festivals, including the Bath International Guitar Festival, the Dundee International Guitar Festival, the Dublin International Guitar Festival and the Wirral International Guitar Festival. He has made recordings with K-Tel, Gael-Linn Records, CBA Classics, Ossian Records, Castle Communications and Blackbox Music. He has also recorded with The Chieftains and Montserrat Caballé.
Fran O’Rourke’s first ‘artistic’ connection with James Joyce, almost fifty years ago, was on a children’s TV programme (hosted by a ventriloquist’s dummy) when he sang a folk song with a line about ‘old mother Flipperflapper’; a variation of the line occurs in Finnegans Wake. The first copy of Ulysses which he held in his hand was a first edition—in Zürich, where he developed the habit of daily visits to Fluntern cemetery.
O’Rourke is Associate Professor of Philosophy at University College Dublin. A graduate of University College Galway he studied in Vienna, Köln, Louvain, and Leuven, where he received his PhD. He has held Fulbright and Onassis fellowships and in 2003 was Visiting Research Professor at Marquette University. He is primarily interested in the tradition of classical metaphysics and has published widely on Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and Heidegger. His book Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas was reissued by University of Notre Dame Press (2005). Allwisest Stagyrite: Joyce’s Quotations from Aristotle was published by the National Library of Ireland in 2005. He is preparing for publication a collection of essays entitled Aristotelian Interpretations, and he is completing a book on James Joyce, Aristotle, and Aquinas. He has lectured widely both on philosophical influences in James Joyce and on Joyce’s use of song; he has performed recitals of Irish songs with a Joyce connection in the National Concert Hall, Dublin (2004), and the Conservatorio, Trieste (2008). In 2012 he arranged and sponsored the restoration of James Joyce’s guitar preserved since 1966 in the Tower at Sandycove.
From James Joyce’s Chamber Music:
Strings in the earth and air
Make music sweet;
Strings by the river where
The willows meet.
….
All softly playing,
With head to the music bent,
And fingers straying
Upon an instrument.
James Joyce’s guitar (c. 1830) is widely known from a famous photograph taken in 1915 by Joyce’s friend Ottacaro Weiss in Zurich (search "James Joyce guitar"). Joyce gave the instrument to his friend Paul Ruggiero in the late ’30s. Ruggiero donated it to the Joyce Museum in Sandycove in 1966. It was restored in March 2012 by renowned luthier Gary Southwell courtesy of facilities provided by the National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks.