Bill Ryan’s compositions are consistently heard on the concert stage, radio, and with dance throughout the country. His music is both evocative and energetic, described by Gramophone Magazine as “…constantly threatening to burst at the seams, were those seams not so artfully structured...Rarely has music this earthy been so elegant." Bill’s composition honors including an ASCAP Young Composers Award and several Meet the Composer awards. In 2008 he won the Michigan Governor’s Award in Arts Education, and in 2009 he received the American Composers Forum's Champion of New Music Award for his significant contributions to the work and livelihoods of contemporary composers throughout the country.
Highlights of the past season included his music performed by violinist Todd Reynolds at New York's le Poisson Rouge and the Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors Festival, Atlanta's Sonic Generator, Seattle Dance Company Whim W'him, New Music Detroit, the Robin Cox Ensemble, saxophonists Jonathan Nichol and Dan Gelok, and the Coalescence Percussion duo in Honduras. Highlights of the upcoming 2011/12 season include a performance at Baltimore's acclaimed Mobtown Modern concert series, a new solo work for percussionist David Cossin, and the Houston premiere of The Secondary Colors, an evening-length collaboration with Karen Stokes Dance.
Also active as a concert producer, Bill has presented over 50 events in his Open Ears and Free Play concert series, gaining national recognition with three ASCAP/Chamber Music America Adventurous Programming Awards. Notable guests have included Prism, So Percussion, Lisa Moore, Todd Reynolds, Julia Wolfe, Talujon, Michael Lowenstern, and the Michael Gordon Band.
As a conductor Bill has commissioned and premiered dozens of works by composers including Phil Kline, Marc Mellits, Belinda Reynolds, Evan Ziporyn, Rob Smith, and Pulitzer Prize winner David Lang. In 2006 he founded the Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble, who have been profiled in numerous publications including Newsweek, the New York Times, and Billboard Magazine, and featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition, 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, in 2009 as members of the all-star ensemble assembled by the Kronos Quartet to perform on the "In C" 45th Anniversary concert at Carnegie Hall, at New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, and at the 2011 Make Music New York summer festival.
The ensemble has released three critically acclaimed recordings named to top year-end lists by the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Weekly, Time Out Chicago, and many others. A track from their second CD, In C Remixed, was recently heard on MTV's new hit series Teen Wolf. Their first CD, Steve Reich's, Music for 18 Musicians, was recently named one of the top five classical recordings of the decade by WNYC’s John Schaefer. Their YouTube videos just passed one million views, all without the aid of a piano playing cat or Lady Gaga.
Bill left the wilds of New York in 2005 and now resides in west Michigan with his wife, three children, two dogs, two hamsters, and two frogs (at last count). When not composing he can be found in the woods or watching the Detroit Tigers.
