Equally at home in the world of opera, symphonic repertoire and contemporary music, American conductor Ryan McAdams has established a presence on both sides of the Atlantic.
A contemporary music advocate, Ryan is the Principal Conductor of the Crash Ensemble, Ireland's foremost contemporary music group. Together they regularly perform at the National Concert Hall’s New Music Dublin Festival and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Following the revival and tour of Donnacha Dennehy and Enda Walsh' latest opera The First Child for Irish National Opera, which had been highly successful at the Galway International Arts Festival, Signum has recorded the production and the CD is due to be released later this season. Together they also premiered The Second Violinist by Dennehy/ Walsh and took the Opera to the Barbican in London and to Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam.
After spending the summer leading Saratoga Opera’s production of Cosi fan tutte, Ryan will return to the National Symphony Orchestra in Dublin. Right after, he will stay in Dublin to conduct Beatrice and Benedict at the Irish National Opera. Throughout the season 24/25 he will deepen his relationships with various Italian orchestras and the pianist Mikhail Pletnev. His collaboration with the Crash ensemble will continue to realize exciting projects throughout the season.
Highlights of last season include a return to the Orchestre National de Ile de France in Paris, the Belgian National Orchestra, the Istanbul State Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana in Palermo, and debuted with the orchestra of the Teatro Filarmonico Verona. After making his German debut at the the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele in 2023, at which he was ,,completely at one with his orchestra, almost dancing while conducting and shaping the music in a captivating and wonderfully sonorous way’’ (Stuttgarter Zeitung), he opened this years Festival.
In previous seasons, Ryan made his debut at the Opernhaus Zürich in a revival of Faust and returned to the Belgium National Orchestra as well as to Italy where he regularly conducts I Pomeriggi Musicali, Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, Orchestra della Toscana, Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna and the Orchestra of the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari. He enjoys a close relationship with the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, and toured with them with an all-Beethoven programme around Southern Italy. In Summer 2022 he joined the newly founded regenerative arts and artist training company Hogfish where he conducted Gluck’s L’arbre enchanté.
Past highlights include performances with Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra, Teatro Regio di Torino, the Lirico Sinfonica Petruzzelli di Bari, Kansas City Symphony, Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, New York City Opera National Symphony in Washington, Vancouver Symphony, DC, Santa Fe Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, Louisiana Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Orchestre Symphonique et Lyrique de Nancy, Opera Nationale de Lorraine, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, L'Orchestra de Chambre de Geneve, Israel Philharmonic, and the Moscow State Philharmonic.
He was the first-ever recipient of both the Sir Georg Solti Emerging Conductor Award and the Aspen-Glimmerglass Prize for Opera Conducting. He was a Conducting Fellow at Tanglewood and an Assistant Conductor at the Aspen Music Festival. The post of Apprentice Conductor at Lorin Maazel’s Castleton Festival was created for him. As a Fulbright scholar, he served as Apprentice Conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, assisting then- Chief Conductor Alan Gilbert. Ryan studied at the Juilliard School and Indiana University.
When Ryan is not travelling, he lives in Brighton, UK, with his wife, the dancer and theatre artist Laura Careless, and their son.
September 2024
