Ryan Homsey is a versatile, award-winning American composer, equally at home writing for instrumental and choral ensembles, theater, dance, and film. His background in classical, electroacoustic, and popular music draws inspiration from his history as a professional ballet dancer
Homsey’s works have been performed by JACK Quartet, PUBLIQuartet, Access Contemporary, ensemble mise-en, Duluth-Superior Symphony Orchestra’s Music to You String Quartet, Boston New Music Initiative, and the Orlando Contemporary Chamber Orchestra at such venues as the Taipei Cultural Center, the Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and National Sawdust.
Ryan Homsey’s music has been featured in new music festivals and concerts by Circles and Lines, Music With A View, the Westchester Square Arts Festival, Catholic University of America’s New Voices @ CUA in Washington, D.C., and Ensemble Mise-en’s music festival at the Taipei Cultural Center in New York City. Other recent performance venues include the Purchase College Performing Arts Center, the Museum of Natural History, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Commissions and awards have come from the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), Young New Yorkers’ Chorus, NY Children’s Aid Chorus, New Haven Oratorio Choir, and Skidmore College’s Dance Department. As a recipient of American Composers Forum’s Live Music for Dance grant, he composed a multi-movement work entitled Recurrent Stages for The Minnesota Ballet. The short film documenting this critically acclaimed collaboration was nominated for an Upper Midwest Emmy Award.
Ryan Homsey’s music has been featured in new music festivals and concerts by Circles and Lines, Music With A View, the Westchester Square Arts Festival, the Seattle International Dance Festival, and the Source Song Festival.
His work as a composer/sound designer has been heard in theater productions at HERE Arts, Metropolitan Playhouse, Astoria Performing Arts Center, Deconstructive Theatre Project, Emerging Artists Theatre, BoCoCa Arts Festival, and Vaudeville Park.
The feature documentary film that Homsey scored entitled Merchant Ivory—produced by Modernist Films—is the definitive presentation of the partnership, both professional and personal, of Oscar-winning director, James Ivory, and legendary producer, Ismail Merchant. The film was featured in approximately 20 international film festivals and played in theaters across the United States.
Homsey also enjoyed a seven-year professional dance career in ballet that includes the Minnesota Ballet, American National Ballet, and Lexington Ballet Company. As a singer, musician, and music director, he has participated in numerous musical theater projects, including an International Tour of productions with Cameron Mackintosh and Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Really Useful Group.
He has studied with Allyson Bellink, Justin Dello Joio, Alice Parker, and Julia Wolfe with additional studies with Libby Larsen and David Evan Thomas as part of Source Song Festival. His music is published by Water Willow Music and GIA Publications.
Homsey holds a B.M. from SUNY Purchase College’s Conservatory of Music—where he also subsequently taught as a lecturer for 15 years—and he holds a M.M. from New York University. He currently lives in Saratoga Springs, NY.
www.ryanhomsey.com