Kwam茅 Ryan was hired Tuesday as music director of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra in North Carolina and given a four-year contract to start with the 2024-25 season.
The 53-year-old succeeds Christopher Warren-Green, who stepped down after the 2021-22 season, his 12th as music director. Ryan will serve as music director designate for the remainder of this season and then devote 10-to-12 weeks per season to the orchestra
Born in Toronto to parents from Trinidad and Tobago who were studying there, Ryan moved to Uganda with his parents as a baby and spent most of his youth in Trinidad. He decided to become a musician after seeing 鈥淪tar Wars鈥� in 1977 and hearing John Williams' score.
鈥淛ust the sound of the orchestra in the cinema kind of blew my mind,鈥� Ryan said.
His parents took him one summer to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and he was mesmerized by the conductor.
鈥淚 just leaned over to my mom, still single digits of age and said, `I want to do that. Whatever that guy is doing, that鈥檚 what I want to do,'鈥� Ryan recalled. 鈥淎stonishingly, she believed me. She took me seriously even at that age. And she said: `OK, let鈥檚 get you a piano. Let鈥檚 get you singing lessons, violin lessons.'鈥�
He attended boarding school in England and then Cambridge, studied with Britain's National Youth Orchestra and worked with conductor Mark Elder and composer/conductor Peter E枚tv枚s. Ryan conducted contemporary music exclusively, often with the Ensemble Modern, before he became general music director of the Freiburg Opera and Freiburg Philharmonic Orchestra in Germany from 1999 to 2003.
鈥淚t was a trial by fire,鈥� said Ryan, who still lives in Freiburg. "I entered there with no repertoire to speak of, no opera repertoire to speak of. and so everything I did, I was learning." It was rough, It was very formative."
Ryan conducted the world premiere of Jake Heggie鈥檚 鈥淚ntelligence鈥� at the Houston Grand Opera in October and is to make his New York Philharmonic debut in May. He was music director of the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine from 2007-13 and music director of the Orchestre Fran莽ais des Jeunes from 2008-11.
Ryan had worked at The Academy for the Performing Arts in Trinidad since 2013, becoming director, when he was called in February 2021 by John Clapp, Charlotte's vice president of artistic operations, and Carrie Graham, its manager of artistic planning. Ryan, who has a cousin in Charlotte and an aunt and a cousin in Raleigh, made his Charlotte debut last January and returned in November.
鈥淭he orchestra liked him so much that we wanted to invite him back to make sure he was a great fit,鈥� Charlotte Symphony president David Fisk said. 鈥淧retty much immediately after that second visit, we made the decision that he was the one that we wanted to offer the position to. He is a just a terrific musician and a very persuasive communicator, both with what he does on the podium, but also in the way that he engages audiences through his words.鈥�
Ronald Blum, The Associated Press
