Timothy Flynn, Ph.D.
Professor of Music
Phone: 269-749-7660
Timothy Flynn, Ph.D., professor of music, has worked at Olivet College since 2002. He received his undergraduate degree from George Mason University, Virginia, and his master’s degree and Ph.D. in musicology from Northwestern University, Illinois. Dr. Flynn teaches music history, music theory and interdisciplinary courses in the arts and humanities. In addition, he has directed the opera and musical theatre productions for the College. As a choral director, Dr. Flynn has conducted performances of the Olivet College Choir and Chamber Singers in Toronto, Ontario; Chicago; Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario; and various venues throughout Michigan. He has led interdisciplinary college seminar courses for Olivet and elsewhere on art, architecture and music, which have traveled to Italy (Venice, Florence and Rome) and France (Paris, Giverny and Versailles).
Dr. Flynn has been an active church musician and he has conducted choirs at the Vatican, the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, the Basilica of St. Mark in Florence and at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. Founding director of the St. Cecilia Chorale, Dr. Flynn has conducted that ensemble in performances in Toronto, Ontario, and throughout the Mid-Michigan area. As an organist, he has performed recitals in Washington, D. C., Chicago, south France, Florence and Rome as well as in Michigan. Dr. Flynn was recently ordained a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan.
A frequent presenter for the San Francisco Opera Company, Dr. Flynn tours the greater Bay Area lecturing on operas from the company’s performance seasons. As a musicologist, he has presented his scholarship on the music of Charles Gounod throughout the U.S. and Europe, most notably at the International Biennial Conference of Nineteenth Century Music at University College, Dublin, Ireland, and his work on the writings of Camille Saint-Saëns at this organization’s conference at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. More recently, his scholarship on the sacred music of Gounod was presented in Lucca, Italy, at the Complesso Monumentale di San Micheletto. And his work on Saint-Saëns’s interest in musicology was presented in Torino, Italy, at the Instituto per i Beni Musicali in Piemonte (Archivio di Stato). Much of his research has been published in scholarly journals and collections in the US and Europe.
Dr. Flynn is also a published composer of choral and organ music through Augsburg Press, Morning Star and CanticaNOVA publishers, and his books, “Camille Saint-Saëns: A Guide to Research” (2003) and “Charles François Gounod: A Research and Information Guide” (2009), are both published by Routledge of New York. His most recent book, “Cesar Franck: Organist, Teacher, Composer,” was published in 2019 by Pendragon Press of New York.
