Tuesday, December 11, 2018, 3 – 4:30 PM EST

Behind the Scenes of
A Southern Celtic Christmas Concert:
A Lecture-Demonstration by
James W. Flannery
Winship Professor Emeritus of the Arts and Humanities and
Director of the W.B. Yeats Foundation

This December will mark the sixth year in a row that PBS viewers across the country will have the opportunity to enjoy an Emmy Award-winning program filmed at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts under the direction of Emory professor emeritus (and founder of Theater Emory), James W. Flannery. In poetry, music, song, dance, and story, “A Southern Celtic Christmas Concert” celebrates the high spirits and mystical beauty of the Celtic lands and their connections with similar traditions of the American South. For many years the stage production was a highlight of the Holiday Season for the Emory and greater Atlanta communities. In this special Christmas presentation for the Emeritus College, Dr. Flannery will discuss the challenges of transforming the stage version of the concert into the PBS film and will offer interpretations of some of its poems and songs, among them Seamus Heaney’s prayer-poem “St. Kevin and the Blackbird.” (As we’ll see, the film includes a rare interview with Heaney himself recorded in Glendalough, the ruins of the Irish monastic community that is the setting of the poem.)