Herbert L. White
THE CHARLOTTE POST
Music made Kwamé Ryan a global citizen.
Ryan, who makes his debut as Charlotte Symphony’s music director this weekend with a pair of concerts, was born in Canada, raised in Trinidad and studied in England and Germany. Those experiences put Ryan in position to make a mark with one of the South’s emerging orchestras. He will conduct two performances of Wang Jie’s Symphonic Overture “America, the Beautiful,” Brahms’s Symphony No. 1, and Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, April 5-6 at Belk Theater, 130 N. Tryon St.
“I’m really excited about engaging with the community and enjoying being part of a community that I have observed to be very vibrant, very diverse, very curious and arts-interested in particular,” Ryan said via telephone from Freiburg, Germany, a city on the Swiss border. “I bring and offer myself within that community as the person that I am with all my mixed-up background: A little bit of Caribbean, a little bit of European, interest in Asian music, interest in jazz. All of that I bring to the experience of being part of the Charlotte community with the orchestra.”
Ryan’s background made him an ideal candidate to lead CSO, orchestra President and CEO David Fisk said upon his appointment.
“As a dynamic leader who understands the full potential of the relationship between an orchestra and its community,” Fisk said in a statement. “Kwamé will undoubtedly deepen the Charlotte Symphony’s service to Charlotte and the region, and, with his passion for music education, bring extraordinary, powerful music-making to a wider audience of all ages.”
Ryan grew up with classical, but there was also inspiration through jazz and Indian music. As a conductor, Ryan’s globe-hopping work exposed him to a wide palette of cultures.
“Both my parents (Joya and Selwyn), who incidentally are Trinidadians, are big classical music lovers, and had during my youth a really extensive vinyl collection that I had the pleasure to explore it when I was in, in single digits of age,” he said.
“My mother in particular really loves Bach and Wagner and she’s very much into classical music. Growing up on the island of Trinidad, there wasn’t a lot of symphonic music being played. In fact, when I was a child, the only opportunities I had to hear an orchestra in Trinidad were the annual productions of the Trinidad and Tobago Opera Society. They would get the best local singers together; they would get the wind and brass from the military band.
“They pulled together the string players they could on the island and would literally fly a conductor in from Ireland. They would perform an opera once a year. That was my first experience of ‘The Magic Flute;’ my first experience of ‘Carmen.’”
It was in Canada, however, where a classic American opera inspired Ryan to pursue a music career.
“One summer, when [my parents] were visiting friends in Toronto, they took my sister and myself to Ontario Place to … an open-air concert, at which we saw ‘Porgy and Bess,’” he said. “And I, 6, or maybe 7 years old at the time, leaned over to my mom and said, ‘Mom, I want to do that thing that guy at the front is doing. The guy who seems to be making the magic with this wand or whatever that was.”
Ryan moved to England, where he studied at Oakham School, in Rutland, and musicology at Cambridge University in addition to training under renowned composer/conductor Peter Eötvös. He also attended the University of Tübingen in Germany for two years, for language and culture studies.
Ryan made his professional conducting debut at the 2004 Edinburgh International Festival, where he returned the next year as ballet conductor with the Scottish Ballet and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. His UK opera conducting debut was in October 2005 with English National Opera, in a production of “Salome.”
In addition to guest assignments in Charlotte last year, Ryan conducted the 2023 world premiere of Jake Heggie’s “Intelligence” at Houston Grand Opera, and is scheduled to make his debut with Opera Theatre of St. Louis and the New York Philharmonic.
Charlotte doesn’t necessarily come to mind as a classical hotbed, but Ryan liked the idea of a new opportunity to contribute to the orchestra and community.
“I definitely feel like the orchestra and what it’s doing in the music industry deserves perhaps more recognition and coverage than it’s enjoyed to date,” he said. “The Charlotte Symphony Orchestra wasn’t necessarily on my radar from outside when they approached me and asked me whether I wanted to just come and conduct in the first place. But for me, when I discover something of quality and integrity, something that corresponds to my own ideas of what an orchestra can bring to a community and that interest is mutual that feels like the beginning of an adventure; that feels like something that we can tackle together and make a difference with.”
Said CSO bassist Jeffrey Ferdon and principal violist Benjamin Geller, co-leaders on the music director search committee that recommended Ryan: “From the outset, there was an incredible chemistry between Kwamé Ryan and the musicians which created an atmosphere of collaboration and inspiration,” “Kwamé’s dynamic performances, as well as his ability to connect with audiences in a meaningful way, truly distinguished him.”
Ryan’s first experiences with the CSO – Copland’s Symphony No. 3, John Adams’ “Short Ride in a Fast Machine,” and Korngold’s Violin Concerto in January 2023 and November for Verdi’s “Requiem” – went so well, he was convinced Charlotte would be an opportunity worth taking.
“It just confirmed, I think, what I had been feeling and what the orchestra had sensed that we would just sort of very natural musical collaborators,” he said. “And when you find when, as a conductor an orchestra that understands you spontaneously and can translate what you’re imagining, artistically and then add what it has to offer on top of that, that’s just a really special experience.”
Charlotte’s music pedigree is historically aligned with southern-infused genres from gospel to rock, but symphony music isn’t foreign. As a conductor with an international resumé, Ryan contends Charlotte has untapped potential to win new fans for classical.
“Being in Charlotte as music director of the Charlotte Symphony doesn’t prevent me from being in the world,” he said. “It just gives me the benefit of a musical home that I really enjoy. It was the sort of trifecta of things that I think any conductor would look for when making a commitment to an orchestra and the first thing is, does the orchestra play fantastically? Well, for me, the answer in Charlotte was yes.”
