BIO
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Kwamé Ryan was born in Canada and grew up on the Caribbean island of Trinidad, where he received his early musical education. At the age of fourteen he was enrolled in boarding school in England, where he studied conducting, piano, voice, violin and double bass, before moving on to study musicology at Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge University. In 1991 he began his conducting studies with the composer and conductor Peter Eötvös, many of whose works he has premiered.
He held the position of General Music Director of Freiburg Opera between 1999 and 2003, and that of Musical and Artistic Director of the National Orchestra of Bordeaux Aquitaine between 2007 and 2013. As a guest conductor, he has in Germany conducted the Radio Orchestras of Baden-Baden and Freiburg, Stuttgart, and Bavaria, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Staatsoper Saarbrücken and Staatsoper Stuttgart. In France, he has worked at the Opera de la Bastille, Opera de Lyon, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and in the USA, the Symphony Orchestras of Baltimore, Dallas, Detroit, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Houston, New Jersey, the WPO, New York, and the Grant Park Festival, Chicago. In the U.K., English National Opera, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and Royal Scottish Symphony, and the London Philharmonia. He is a regular guest of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. Ryan now conducts worldwide as a freelancer, while dedicating himself to educational and community development work as Director of Trinidad and Tobago's recently founded Academy for the Performing Arts (NAPA) at the University of Trinidad and Tobago. He was recently announced as a 2017 Laureate of the prestigious Sabga Award for Excellence in the field of Arts and Letters. In the 2018/19 Season he returns to the Baltimore Symphony, the Philharmonia Orchestra, London, Opera de La Monnaie and will pursue pedagogical projects at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, the University of Delaware and the African American Museum in Philadephia. |
Recent & SoonPhilharmonia Orchestra
Baltimore Symphony KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra Opera de La Monnaie Brussels Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance University of Delaware African American Museum, Philadelphia |
AwardsOfficer, Order of Arts and Letters, France
Victoire de la Musique, Contemporary Music Cambridge Commonwealth Scholarship Miliffe Scholarship, Cambridge University Hall of Achievement - Fatima College |
Selected DiscsSchubert: Symphony No. 9
Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 2 Hartmann: Simplicius Simplicissimus Feldman: Neither Grisey: Vortex Temporum |