Composers Festival Spotlight: Ryan Chase

Ryan Chase

Before being selected as one of the resident composers for the 2013 Mizzou International Composers Festival, Ryan Chase has had his music performed “in venues ranging from dive bars to Carnegie Hall.”

A native of Albany, NY, Chase earned a bachelor’s degree from the Mannes College of Music in 2008 and a masters degree from Indiana University in 2010. He currently is pursuing a doctorate at Indiana, where he also teaches undergraduate courses in post-tonal ear training and theory.

With conductor Ben Bolter and composer Jeremy Podgursky (who was a resident composer at the 2010 MICF), Chase also recently helped to founf Holographic, a new music collective in Bloomington.

His works have been performed by ensembles including Alaria, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, CIRCE, Contemporaneous, the IU New Music Ensemble, members of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, the Chelsea Symphony, the Mexico City Woodwind Quintet, violinist Colin Sorgi, and new music soprano Ariadne Greif.

Chase was a Ford and Schumann Fellow at the 2012 Aspen Music Festival, and his music has been recognized with awards including a 2013 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, two consecutive BMI Student Composer Awards (including the 2011 William Schuman Prize for Most Outstanding Entry), and the Audience Choice Award from the 2012 American Composers Orchestra Underwood Readings. His other awards include first prize in the 2011 National Association of Composers USA Young Composers’ Competition, the Jean Schneider Goberman Award, and the Bohuslav Martinú Award.

He currently studies at IU with Don Freund – father of Mizzou’s Stefan Freund – and also has studied with Claude Baker, David Dzubay, Keith Fitch, Gabriela Ortíz, David Tcimpidis, George Tsontakis, Chen Yi, Jeffrey Hass, John Gibson, and Alicyn Warren.

Earlier this year, Chase wrote the soundtrack to Euclid’s Watch, a short movie created by Red Tape Films at Indiana University as part of Campus MovieFest, the world’s largest student film festival.

You can hear an interview with Ryan Chase from 2012 on the podcast No Extra Notes here, and listen to some samples of his music online here.

Ryan Chase’s “Gold Rush” for five violins, performed by Kay Stern, Robin Mayforth, Jeremy Preston, Michael Nicholas, and Jennifer Cho for Composers, Inc.

Chase’s chamber symphony “II,” performed as part of his graduate recital at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music’s Auer Hall.