Ryan was selected for his keen musical talent in classical compositions. The central focus of this fellowship is composing original music for the National Premiere of Requiem by Hanoch Levin directed by Raymond Bobgan. Ryan is also working on scoring music from ensemble generated music in Candlelight Hypothesis and as part of the fellowship participates in a variety of other CPT activities.  

“Ryan’s sense of how music can amplify impact of performance in both conventional and unconventional is profound.” ― Raymond Bobgan, CPT executive artistic director 

Ryan is a composer who has lived in Cleveland for over 20 years. He began writing classical music in 5th grade, and by 9th grade was studying under the associate dean of music at Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Music.   

He has been an active member of the Cleveland Composers Guild since 2012 and was the composer for the Gordon Square Classical Concert series for five years. He has been an active contributor to Cleveland Public Theatre’s The Dark Room for over a decade and has had plays performed for CPT’s Catapult series and Test Flight.   

His work has been produced by Oddyfest Theatre Labs, Cleveland Opera Theatre, Greater Cleveland Flute Society, Cleveland Classical Guitar Society, and several times for Ingenuity Festival.  His work can be heard regularly on the radio for WVIZ Ideastream as well as YouTube and Spotify.   

His output includes opera, chamber, choral, orchestral, and keyboard music. 

The last Kulas Foundation grantee was Obediya Jones-Darrell who has gone on to do music for a number of CPT projects as well as projects in Cleveland and his native Canada.