About
Ryan is an award-winning Musical Director. He has music directed over 40 productions from classics to new works. After he completed a Masters of Music in Orchestral Conducting at the University of Cincinnati, he conducted the second national tour of Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella, and played keyboard 1 for the first national tour of Anastasia. Some other favourite musical directing credits include …Spelling Bee at the Mayfield Dinner Theatre in Edmonton, Spring Awakening at the Citadel Theatre School and Singin’ in the Rain at the University of Cincinnati. Ryan has been an actor, pianist, violinist, singer and composer. He has composed award winning musicals, and studied in the BMI Lehman Engels Musical Theatre Writing Workshop in New York.
Ryan has taught singing, song interpretation and musicianship to many levels of performers. He has taught at the prestigious musical theatre program in the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, for the Citadel Theatre/Banff Centre Professional Training Program, and at Artstrek, a large, long-running summer theatre intensive for teens in Alberta, Canada. Ryan enjoys teaching a wide variety of singing skills rooted in musical theatre song interpretation. His is also trained in voice and speech techniques like dialect development, choral music and sight-singing. His students and clients have gone on to productions on Broadway, American national tours and many major theatres across Canada.
Ryan’s skills at the piano have allowed him to share the stage with John Ullyatt in Billy Bishop Goes to War (Citadel Theatre), Julie Golosky in Tomson Highway’s The Incredible Adventures of Mary Jany Mosquito (Concrete Theatre), and many other exceptional performers like Patricia Zentilli, Bridget Ryan, Susan Gilmour, Shannon Taylor, Robert Markus, Jocelyn Ahlf, Andrew MacDonald-Smith and many others.
Since the pandemic, Ryan has enjoyed getting back to composing. Some of his favourite credits include composing Everybody Goes to Mitzi’s and The Infinite Shiver for Teatro La Quindicina. Ryan is a member of the BMI Musical Theatre Writing Workshop in NYC.
Ryan grew up in Edmonton and received his Bachelor of Science (Hon) in Cell Biology from the University of Alberta. He then received a Diploma in Theatre Arts from MacEwan University. He also has a Master of Music (M.M.) in Orchestral Conducting from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Ryan resides in the Toronto area.
