James Joseph Sheridan

James Joseph (J.J.) Sheridan (26 September 1951 in Borris-in-Ossory, County Laois – 31 December 2014 in New York City) was an Irish pianist, composer, arranger and music historian who specialized in preserving and recording Irish music.

Education and career Sheridan attended the Royal Irish Academy of Music where he studied piano with John O’Sullivan and Valerie Walker, as well as composition with A.J. Potter. He also attended the London College of Music. as a vehicle for preserving Irish music, especially the works of Turlough O'Carolan, Edward Bunting, Patrick Weston Joyce and George Petrie. An eight-disc set, The Complete Works Of Turlough O’Carolan, was released in 2007. This was the first and still the only complete edition of all 214 pieces by the great eighteenth-century Irish harper known as "the last of the bards."

In 2011 Sheridan received Irish America’s Stars of the South award which honors notable Irish people in the southern United States. He died in New York City on 31 December. 2014.