UMaine MFA Student Wins Two Children’s Music Web Awards
Contact: Daniel Flannery, danieljflannery@gmail.com
ORONO– Daniel Flannery, a student in the University of Maine’s Intermedia master of fine arts program, has won two Children’s Music Web Awards.
Flannery, an Oceanside, N.J., native, moved to Maine to create children’s media with his brother, Mike, who runs the 32 Central recording studio in Bangor. Daniel Flannery has worked in the field of children’s new media since 2001, when he began writing and producing music for a children’s hip-hop project called MeeWee (http://www.meewee.com). MeeWee is designed to provide children of the hip-hop generation with positive, educational music. To date, it has been successfully integrated into hundreds of school programs across the country. The album, “MeeWee: Hip Hop for Kids” was recently released and just won Best Album for School Aged Children in the 2008 Children’s Music Web Awards.
Flannery’s latest record, “Show Me How You Dance” is a collection of animal-inspired dance songs. After learning a wide array of animal dances, listeners demonstrate how a person dances by performing their own unique moves. A track from this album, “The Crab Walk” won Best Song for School Aged Children in the 2008 Children’s Music Web Awards.
Dan is currently pursuing an MFA in Intermedia at the University of Maine with a focus on exploring new ways to present abstract concepts, stories, and information to children through a variety of interactive media.
“In the MFA program, I am developing some new ways of approaching kids media other than the books and records that I had been making in the past,” Flannery says. “My ambition is to start working on something of a Web-based children’s Intermedia space where they are the artists and collaborators.”
In addition to his work with MeeWee, Gap Kids released Flannery’s song “Jumping Jacks” internationally in its stores. He has also performed at the Maine Discovery Museum. In his spare time, he plays in two bands: Ukulele Funk and Feel It Robot.
About the Intermedia MFA program at UMaine
The University of Maine is home to the region’s only master of fine arts degree program in Intermedia. The student-driven program blends arts courses with research in areas including but not limited to environmental studies, engineering, business, social sciences and new media. MFA director Owen Smith explains that this interdisciplinary approach encourages innovation and creative problem-solving in a way that is applicable to any industry or creative application.