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 studied at Trinity College, Dublin, Queens College of the City University, New York, and The National University of Ireland, Maynooth, where he graduated with a PhD in music. He has taught at the American Institute of Guitar, Memphis State University, the Royal Irish Academy of Music and the Conservatory of Music, Dublin Institute of Technology (now TUDublin).
Highly regarded for his performance and recordings of new works by Irish composers, he has had many works written for him. He is a regular performer at many international guitar festivals and has made recordings with K-Tel, Gael-Linn Records, CBA Classics, Ossian Records, Castle Communications, Blackbox Music, England and Celestial Harmonies, Germany. He has also recorded with the Chieftains, famous Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballes, flautist William Dowdall and cellist Annette Cleary.
Concerts have taken him around the world and include appearances at the Sydney Opera House, the Old Opera House, Frankfurt, L’Arena in Verona, and New York’s Carnegie Hall.
‘A bolder more imaginative interpreter’ (New York Times)
‘Above all the achievement is Feeley’s commanding technique placed at the service of talented young composers. (BBC, The Complete Guide to Classical Music)
‘Immaculate recording compliments Feeley’s remarkable virtuosity … an abundance of refined writing and exquisite playing. (The Wire, London)
‘… all played with careful attention to nuances of tone and texture … a devoted audience rose to its collective feet at both intermission and concert’s end. (Washington Post)
‘His formidable technique and sheer musicality can take your breath away.’ (Avant, England)
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Fran O’Rourke’s first ‘artistic’ connection with James Joyce, as a teenager in the mid sixties, 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 which occurs in Finnegans Wake. The first copy of Ulysses which he held in his hand was a first edition—in Zürich, where in August 1970 he developed the habit of daily visits to Joyce’s grave in Fluntern cemetery.
O’Rourke is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at University College Dublin. A graduate of University College Galway he studied in Vienna, Cologne, Louvain, and Leuven, where he received a PhD in philosophy. 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, Neoplatonism, Aquinas, and Heidegger. His book Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas (Brill, 1992) 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. Aristotelian Interpretations, a collection of essays (Irish Academic Press) was published in 2016. Joyce, Aristotle, and Aquinas (University of Florida Press, 2022) was adapted from his thesis for a PhD in literature. He is completing a collection of essays, Aquinas and the Platonist Tradition, to be published in 2025. He was awarded a DLitt from the National University of Ireland for published work.
Fran O’Rourke has lectured widely both on philosophical influences in James Joyce and on Joyce’s use of Irish traditional song. He has given Joyce related concerts with John Feeley in the National Concert Hall, Dublin (2004), and worldwide from Shanghai to San Diego. He has performed solo recitals in the Conservatorio, Trieste (2008), and for many Irish embassies, including those in Athens, Rome, Moscow, Sofia, Warsaw, Mexico and Santiago. He has performed with harper Derek Bell in the National Concert Hall, Dublin, and Dublin Castle.
In 2012 he 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.