Full Bio

Ryan Carter is a composer of music for instruments, voices, and computers. Praised by the New York Times as "imaginative...like, say, a Martian dance party," Ryan's music has been performed throughout Europe and North America by the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, the Nieuw Ensemble, the JACK Quartet, the Argento Chamber Ensemble, NOW Ensemble, and many others. Ryan has received commissions from Carnegie Hall, Present Music, The Milwaukee Children's Choir, the MATA Festival, the Metropolis Ensemble, and the Calder Quartet, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Jerome Foundation, the American Composers Forum, and Meet the Composer. Ryan has been awarded Lee Ettelson Award, the Aaron Copland Award, the National Association of Composers/USA Composer's Competition, and the Publikumspreis at the Heidelberg Spring Festival. Ryan was also a finalist for the 2005 Gaudeamus Prize and was chosen as one of NPR and Q2's favorite "100 Composers Under 40."

In addition to composing acoustic music, Ryan is an avid computer musician. He is currently programming an album of algorithmically generated, listener-interactive electronica in the form of an iOS app (for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch). Ryan also serves on the Board of Directors of SEAMUS (the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States).

Raised in Wisconsin, Ryan holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and SUNY - Stony Brook, where his primary teachers included Richard Hoffmann and Daniel Weymouth. After finishing his Master's, Ryan spent a year studying with Louis Andriessen and Gilius van Bergeijk at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague (the Netherlands) and is currently completing a PhD at New York University, where he has worked with Elizabeth Hoffman and Matthias Pintscher. Ryan has pursued additional studies at the Computer Music Center at Columbia University with Brad Garton and Miller Puckette. Ryan lives mostly in New York City and sometimes in Cleveland, Ohio.