VIDEO: Governor's 'Arts Educator Award' goes to GVSU's Ryan

Dr. Bill Ryan of Grand Valley State University's Department of Music received the Arts Educator Award November 13, at the 23rd Annual Governor's Awards for Arts & Culture (The Guvvys). The award was presented at the Detroit Institute of Arts during the annual event hosted by ArtServe Michigan.

ArtServe Michigan stated that Ryan received this award because his work as an arts educator has enriched Michigan’s arts and culture, and its reputation as a destination state both to visit and to come to live. The other nominees for the award were Paulette Brockington, dance instructor at the Warren Consolidated School of Performing Arts, and Nancy Jones, Director of Education at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Ryan shared the Detroit Film Theater stage with a handful of other winners, including this year’s International Achievement Award recipients, musician Bob James and director/producer/writer/lyricist Jack O’Brien.
 
"I am incredibly honored by this news,” said Ryan. “Not only does this mean a lot to me personally, but it also affirms that education of the highest caliber can take place in an environment focused on contemporary music. My students have known this for some time, so it is very satisfying for us all to have this recognition on the state-wide level."

Ryan, who joined the faculty at Grand Valley in 2005, teaches music composition and is founder and producer the university’s Free Play concert series, which allows students to directly interact and learn from some of today’s most successful and professional musicians and ensembles. He is also founder and director of the university’s New Music Ensemble, which has received unprecedented national acclaim over the past year for their performances and commercial recording of Steve Reich’s “Music for Eighteen Musicians.” 

Last year in June, they were invited to perform at the 20th anniversary of the prestigious Bang on a Can Marathon in New York City. That fall their CD hit the stores and climbed the charts. By December it was named one of the year’s best classical releases by The New York Times. Accolades have poured forth in print, online and on-air media, from Billboard and LA Weekly, to The New Yorker and The Washington Post. In February this year, the ensemble was featured on NPR’s “Weekend Edition Sunday.”

The ensemble will perform at Carnegie Hall in April 2009, by invitation from the Kronos Quartet, for the 45th anniversary of the premiere of Terry Riley’s “In C.” Kronos, plus members of Grand Valley’s New Music Ensemble, will be among a one-time-only gathering of musicians including, Terry Riley and original “In C” performers Stuart Dempster, Jon Gibson, and Pauline Oliveros.

For more information about the New Music Ensemble, visit newmusicensemble.org . A video clip of the ensemble performing Reich's "Music for Eighteen Musicians" is available here: