Vancouver composer Jeffrey Ryan becomes first Canadian to win American art-song award
Tyler Duncan and Erika Switzer premiered the piece at Music on Main in November
Jeffrey Ryan
VANCOUVER COMPOSER JEFFREY RYAN has won first prize in the National Association of Teachers of Singing 2021 Art Song Composition Award for his Everything Already Lost.
Stir told you about the song cycle in November, when Vancouver baritone Tyler Duncan and pianist Erika Switzer performed the world premiere for Music on Main. You can watch those artists, who commissioned the piece with the goal of evoking the West Coast, talk about and bring to life the lyrical and hauntingly beautiful work here or below.
The piece draws from the poetry of University of Victoria philosophy professor Jan Zwicky. “Her poetry is infused with music,” said Ryan, who often draws inspiration from nature for his compositions.
As first-prize winner, Ryan will receive $2,000 and the piece will be performed at the 57th NATS National Conference, which is slated for July 2022 in Chicago. Additionally, the Cincinnati Song Initiative also will program the work on a future concert as part of its Americana series.
The piece debuted in a virtual concert by Music on Main, recorded at the Chan Centre for Performing Arts as a four-song set.
“No matter how thrilled you may be to share this news, I am even more thrilled to receive it,” Ryan said in acceptance of the award. “This is fantastic. I am right now in the middle of a new cycle for tenor that will premiere online in April. So my musical brain is very much in art song mode at the moment. I love writing for singers, and have been particularly lucky in the last few years to have had several art song projects. ‘Everything Already Lost’ was a blessing to have on my plate last spring at the beginning of the pandemic shutdown — it gave me something to focus on during such a dark and seemingly hopeless time for all of us in the arts (not out of the woods yet, of course!). It was great that the presenter, Vancouver’s Music on Main, was able to pivot and film the performance for online [distribution]. I’m so proud of the piece, the poetry by Jan Zwicky is gorgeous, and the commissioning team (Tyler Duncan and Erika Switzer) are phenomenal. It is a massive honour that now the piece has been given this recognition by NATS. I also want to thank the SOCAN Foundation for financial support of the commission as well as a private donation from the estate of Steen Olaf Welding, in whose memory the piece is dedicated.”
The NATS Art Song Composition Award program was established in 1983 to stimulate the creation of quality vocal literature through the cooperation of singer and composer. Recent winners have included Kurt Erickson, Philip Lasser, David Conte, Robert Patterson, Melissa Dunphy, David Sisco, Matt Boehler, and Benjamin C.S. Boyle.
Ryan has served as composer-in-residence and composer laureate at the VSO, and has taken on such major collaborations as Seasons of the Sea with Coast Salish/Sahtu Dene storyteller Rosemary Georgeson for Vetta Chamber Music; Afghanistan: Requiem for a Generation with poet Suzanne Steele, for the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra; and Scar Tissue with poet Michael Redhill for Nordic Voices and the Gryphon Trio. His Emily Carr songs Miss Carr in Seven Scenes, was a finalist in the National Association of Teachers of Singing awards in 2019.
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