Ryan Murray, Principal Pops Conductor

Ryan Murray

Principal Pops Conductor

American conductor Ryan Murray has found steady acclaim as a compelling, dynamic and unflappable presence on the podium. Ryan is currently Principal Pops Conductor for the Modesto Symphony, Music Director of the Auburn Symphony, and Artistic Director of Music in the Mountains. An award-winning opera conductor, Ryan spent his early career working as an assistant conductor and répétiteur, and is currently the Music Director of Opera Modesto. He has served as an assistant conductor at the Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera, is the past Music Director of Fresno Grand Opera, and previously worked as a staff conductor for the Bay Area Summer Opera Theater Institute (BASOTI) and The Opera Academy of California in San Francisco. Effortlessly moving between genres, Ryan currently enjoys a wide range of performance genres & platforms, including traditional orchestral and operatic repertoire, pops performances, movies in concert, and a notable emphasis on contemporary American operatic works.

Ryan was the winner of the Vienna Philharmonic’s prestigious Ansbacher Fellowship for Young Conductors, and spent the summer in residence alongside the Vienna Philharmonic at the 2014 Salzburg Festival. Ryan was also awarded second place in the 2019 American Prize for Professional Orchestral Conducting for his work with the Modesto Symphony, and has garnered national recognition for his dynamic, compelling performances of contemporary opera as the winner of the 2017 American Prize in Opera Conducting for his highly lauded production of A Streetcar Named Desire. He was a 2016 semi-finalist for the Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for the Performance of American Music for his production of Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking.

A charismatic pops conductor, Ryan has worked with prominent artists such as Storm Large of Pink Martini, SuperDiamond and the phenomenal symphonic tribute to David Bowie. He was recently engaged to step-in at the last minute as assistant and cover conductor for Andrea Bocelli's Believe Tour with the Sacramento Philharmonic where he conducted rehearsals to acclaim. He has led some of the top vocalists from Broadway and beyond, including Ben Crawford (Broadway's The Phantom of the Opera), Ashley Brown (Broadway's Mary Poppins), and Alli Mauzey (Glinda from Wicked), as well as some of today's top young jazz vocalists including Tony DeSare and James Tormé. With an enthusiasm for film scores, Ryan enjoys the unique challenges of conducting movies in concert and was recently added the the Disney & ICM Approved Conductors list. Recent and upcoming performances include Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Pixar Animation Studios' Pixar in Concert, Star Wars: A New Hope and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.

Ryan holds degrees, summa cum laude, in Bassoon Performance and Voice Performance from California State University, Sacramento and also holds a master’s degree, with distinction, in Music Business from the Berklee College of Music where he studied with industry professionals to develop tools for success in the modern music industry, including new technology, policy, law and finance. Ryan has a strong commitment to education and currently serves as the Director of Symphony Orchestra & Opera at California State University, Sacramento, and as the conductor for the Sacramento Youth Symphony's premier orchestra. Driven by a lifelong passion for learning, Ryan has attended conducting masterclasses and seminars around the world. Ryan recently conducted the Romanian Chamber Orchestra in concert and was one of just eight conductors worldwide to be invited to the Musiikin aika Summer Festival Masterclass in Finland led by Susanna Mälkki. He has previously attended the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music's Conductors Workshop; the contemporary music symposium led by Alan Gilbert featuring the New York Philharmonic; the Aurora Chamber Festival in Sweden, where he studied under Maestro Kurt Masur; the Lucerne Festival Academy’s Conducting Masterclass in Switzerland; and the Eastman School of Music’s Summer Conducting Institute. Widely praised for his tireless work ethic, natural poise, and impassioned, inspired performances, Ryan continues to connect deeply with orchestras and audiences alike, and has proven to be a formidable presence on the podium.

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Upcoming Concerts

Stephen Hough, piano

“The most perfect piano playing conceivable.”

— The Guardian

“A virtuoso who begins where others leave off”

— Washington Post

Combining a distinguished career as a pianist with those of composer and writer, Stephen Hough is regarded as a Renaissance man of his time. The first classical pianist to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), his mastery of the instrument as well as an individual and inquisitive mind has earned him a multitude of prestigious awards and a longstanding international following.

Since taking first prize at the 1983 Naumburg Competition in New York, Mr. Hough has performed with the world’s major orchestras and given recitals at the most prestigious concert halls. His recent and upcoming North American engagements include performances with the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, Cleveland and Minnesota Orchestras, and the San Francisco, Montreal, St. Louis, Cincinnati, National, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Dallas and Detroit symphonies among many others; recitals in New York at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and the 92nd St. Y, the Kennedy Center and in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Toronto; and festival appearances at Aspen, Blossom, the Hollywood Bowl, Mostly Mozart, Ravinia and Tanglewood. Internationally, he appears with orchestras and in recital in major music centers such as London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Helsinki, Zurich, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Beijing, Singapore, Shanghai, Sydney and Melbourne.

On June 1, 2020, Stephen Hough re-opened London’s Wigmore Hall, performing the UK’s first live classical music concert in a major venue since the nationwide lockdown in March. Later in the summer he made his 29th appearance at the BBC Proms performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. During the 19/20 season, he also curated a five concert Brahms series at Wigmore Hall, performing with Renaud Capucon and Steven Isserlis among others.

Mr. Hough’s extensive discography of over 60 CDs has garnered international awards including the Diapason d’Or de l’Année, several Grammy nominations, and eight Gramophone Awards including Record of the Year and the Gold Disc. Recent releases include solo piano works by Debussy, the ‘Dream Album’, a compilation of Mr. Hough’s favorite short works, and a live recording of Schumann and Dvořák’s piano concertos with Andris Nelsons and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, all for Hyperion Records. In May 2020, Mr. Hough celebrated the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth with a three-disc recording cycle of the composer’s five piano concertos, recorded with Hannu Lintu and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra for Hyperion Records. Mr. Hough has performed the Beethoven piano concertos numerous times with the world's leading orchestras throughout his 30-year career, including in recent seasons with the New York Philharmonic and St. Louis Symphony. Mr. Hough’s next recording, Vida, featuring his Vida Breve sonata and works by Chopin, Liszt, Busoni, and Bach/Gounod, is due to be released in January 2021.

As a composer, Mr. Hough has written for orchestra, choir, chamber ensemble and solo piano. He has been commissioned by Wigmore Hall, Musée du Louvre, London’s National Gallery, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral, the Genesis Foundation, Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, Indianapolis Symphony, the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation, the Cliburn Foundation and the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet. His music is published by Josef Weinberger Ltd.

A noted writer, Mr. Hough has written articles for the New York Times, The Guardian, The Times (UK), The Telegraph, Evening Standard, The Tablet, Gramophone, and BBC Magazine. From 2010 until 2016 he wrote more than six hundred articles on his blog for The Telegraph, which became one of the most popular and influential forums for cultural discussion. A major anthology of essays by Mr. Hough on music, cultural, lifestyle and spiritual subjects – titled Rough Ideas: Reflections on Music and More – was published by Faber & Faber (UK) in 2019 and by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (US) in 2020. This follows his first novel, The Final Retreat, published by Sylph Editions in March 2018. Also an avid painter, Mr. Hough gave his first exhibition of nearly twenty abstract acrylic paintings in London in 2012.

Stephen Hough is an Honorary Member of the Royal Philharmonic Society, a Visiting Professor at the Royal Academy of Music, holds the International Chair of Piano Studies at the Royal Northern College of Music, and is on the faculty of The Juilliard School in New York.

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Website: http://www.stephenhough.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/houghhough/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/houghhough

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3G5zQYaRH9y6ruE4QnoITP?autoplay=true

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?playnext=1&list=PLguhthqe7dzbURZeknL3yF2KW3yArEH6P&feature=gws_kp_artist

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Upcoming Performances