Whether composing, conducting or teaching, or producing concerts or recordings, Bill Ryan is passionate about contemporary music and bringing it to diverse audiences. His compositions are consistently heard on the concert stage, radio, and with dance throughout the country. Bill has received numerous composition honors including an ASCAP Young Composers Award and a Meet the Composer Education Program grant. In 2009 his music was performed over fifty times in cities including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, St. Louis, and Houston. Other recent activity includes commissions by Opus 21, the Robin Cox Ensemble, violinist Todd Reynolds, and projects with Travesty Dance of Houston.

Bill has produced over 45 concerts in his “Open Ears” and” Free Play” concert series, gaining national recognition with three ASCAP/Chamber Music America Adventurous Programming Awards. As a conductor he has commissioned and premiered dozens of works by composers including Phil Kline, Marc Mellits, Belinda Reynolds, Evan Ziporyn, and Pulitzer Prize winner David Lang.

In 2006 Bill founded The Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble and shortly after produced their critically acclaimed recording of Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians. Named among the top recordings of 2007 by The New York Times, L.A. Weekly, The Rest Is Noise, and New York Magazine, the CD reached the top of iTunes’ and Amazon’s classical charts, and spent eleven weeks on Billboard’s top 25 classical crossover chart. WNYC’s John Schaefer most recently named it one of his top five classical recordings of the decade, and it was named the #1 classical recording of the decade in the Soundcheck listener poll. In late 2009 he produced the ensemble's second CD, In C Remixed, featuring Terry Riley’s In C along with 18 remixes. Critically acclaimed in numerous publications, the recording was named a top release of 2009 by The Washington Post, Time Out Chicago, and All About Jazz, and was named the #2 release of the year in WNYC’s Newsoundslistener poll. Bill and the ensemble have been profiled in numerous publications, including Newsweek, The New York Times, and Billboard Magazine, and featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition and All Things Considered, and WNYC's Radiolab. They performed at the 2007 Bang On a Can Marathon in New York, at the 2008 College Music Society National Conference in Atlanta, as members of the all-star ensemble assembled by the Kronos Quartet to perform on the In C 45th Anniversary concert at Carnegie Hall, and this past fall at New York’s Le Poisson Rouge.

In 2008 Bill won the Michigan Governor’s Award in Arts Education for his work at Grand Valley State University, and in 2009 he received the American Composers Forum's Champion of New Music Award for his significant contributions to the work and livlihoods of contemporary composers throughout the country.