Ryan McQuay Meredith
Ryan McQuay Meredith is a composer, trombonist, environmentalist, and advocate for the music of others. Since his upbringing in Northeast America, Ryan has traveled internationally as both a composer and trombonist. He writes music about his experiences outdoors, featuring Delaware, New York, national parks, the Mojave Desert, Germany, Scotland, and Alaska. His compositional style is diverse and exploratory, often inspired by visual arts, technology, and sonic experience.
Ryan works in a variety of mediums, from concert to computers to canvas. Other mediums of art serve critical roles in Ryan’s compositional process. He frequently explores painting, photography, sculpture, even macramé, to find musically meaningful connections between art and lived experience. In a grant funded by CNY Arts Inc., Ryan composed music to the work of outdoor watercolor artist Mary P. Murphy. Watercolors (2024) was premiered with live-painting by Murphy, creating an ongoing conversation through music and canvas alone.
Ryan is a frequent collaborator. His recent collaboration with organist Joseph Maxwell Ossei-Little produced extraordinary new repertoire for the organ as part of the 2024 American Guild of Organist Student Commission Project. His National Parks Series (2022) for Trombone Choir was premiered in five separate parts in collaboration with the University of Delaware Trombone Choir, The Washington Trombone Ensemble, and The BonesEast Trombone Ensemble. The series, now distributed by the International Trombone Association, musically illustrates the grandeur and uniqueness of five American national parks. Ryan has also composed and recorded multiple pieces with his Music Box, a home-made mechanical instrument using electro-acoustic live-processing.
Ryan currently teaches music in central New York. He holds degrees in Music Composition from Syracuse University (M.M.) and the University of Delaware (B.M.). Apart from music, Ryan loves his wife, Hannah Dale, his two cats, painting, Lego, and the color orange.
