For You Alone
Over fifteen years in the making, my first collection of short solo piano works is intended to provide an exceedingly calm and rebalancing antidote to the often distracted and noise-filled pace of modern life. The moods of the pieces are appreciative and contemplative – some with a touch of mystery, nostalgia, or romance – and the compositional style is exceptionally sparse.
The recordings are also intentionally a bit slower than you might be used to. These are deceptively simple pieces – technically easy to play – but able to convey and sometimes unlock within the listener a complexity of emotional depth, relaxation, and healing.
While each one has a singable melody, several of the songs create a feeling of moving in slow motion, being suspended in a pleasant dream, or of being at complete peace. My hope is that this album can be a dose of music-as-medicine, where the listener will feel mentally or emotionally healthier after listening.
Many late nights and solitary moments have come together to create this album, intended to be experienced in a single session by a lone listener, ideally while seated comfortably or lying down, eyes closed, headphones on. This album is for you alone.
A digital download of the complete sheet music book will soon be available in the store.
Ken Burns
The short documentary film “Ken Burns: On Story“, which Ryan scored for Redglass Pictures, made its web debut on The Atlantic. The film features the legendary Ken Burns discussing what he finds most compelling about the art of storytelling. Selected as a Vimeo Staff Pick.
Ryan separately provided score music for multiple segments within the official Ken Burns iPad app, which navigates three decades of Ken’s work including The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz, The National Parks, Frank Lloyd Wright, Prohibition, and Mark Twain.
PBS
Ryan created the score music for “The Story of Cancer – The Emperor of All Maladies”, a series of short documentary films for PBS supporting the larger three-part, six-hour “CANCER: The Emperor of All Maladies” feature documentary. The feature film is based on Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee’s 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winning nonfiction book “The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer”, and premiered on every PBS television station in America on March 30, 31, and April 1, 2015; Executive Producer: Ken Burns, Director & Producer: Barak Goodman. Subjects of the short film series Ryan scored include Suleika Jaouad, Dr. Jose Baselga, Terrence Howard, Ken Jeong, Angelo Merendino and many others. Find out more about the project here. The short documentary series was created by Redglass Pictures and won the Best Reality/Documentary Series award at the 2015 Brooklyn Web Fest, in addition to being named a 2016 Webby Awards honoree: “Honorees like Redglass Pictures are setting the standard for innovation and creativity on the Internet,” said David-Michel Davies, Executive Director of The Webby Awards. “It is an incredible achievement to be selected among the best from the nearly 13,000 entries we received this year.”
History of Memory
Ryan created the music for History of Memory, a series of four short documentary films by Redglass Pictures and the Garage by HP. Each film celebrates the power of a printed photograph to change our lives.
From Florida to India, Beijing to New Orleans, the series explores stories of real people whose lives were forever altered by the discovery, creation, or preservation of a photograph. In At First Sight, a deep connection is made across continents following the exchange of two images. The Secret Album tells of a woman who discovers her true self after the uncovering of a hidden family photo album. China Lost & Found reconnects an elderly man with a favorite long-lost image from decades past. And in It’s a Boy, a young man poses for an unconventional photo shoot, and then feels a part of a family for the first time in his life. In each History of Memory film, we are reminded that the most important memories are those which we cherish, share, and protect.
The series won the Tribeca X Award for Best Episodic Short Series at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, screened at Sundance 2019, and was a 2020 Webby Winner for Best Branded Entertainment/Series Video.
New York Times
Ryan composed and recorded all the music in the three days leading up to the debut of this true story of a genuine Christmas mystery by Sarah Klein and Tom Mason of Redglass Pictures. Originally published by The New York Times on Christmas eve 2010, this short film went viral and was optioned by Tina Fey and Universal Studio for a feature film. Vimeo creator Blake Whitman generously gave a personal shout-out to the documentary, as well as to the music in its own right. Selected as a Vimeo Staff Pick.
New York City Ballet
The New York City Ballet premiered this short film at their Lincoln Center Fall Gala in September 2014 to celebrate the commencement of the season and its new costume designers and choreographers. Directed by Matt Bockelman, Fly’s Eye Films. Music by Ryan Whittier.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Ryan composed and recorded the music score for this short film released on Neil deGrasse Tyson‘s Facebook page, as well as StarTalk Radio‘s YouTube channel. In the video, Tyson speaks about the fundamental importance of science to the United States and human civilization at large; he also advocates for science to be neither ignored nor politicized. Here’s what he typed when debuting the video on his Facebook page:
“Dear Facebook Universe
I offer this four-minute video on “Science in America” containing what may be the most important words I have ever spoken.
As always, but especially these days, keep looking up.
—Neil deGrasse Tyson”
Ryan’s music for the film opens with a string ensemble, pipe organ, and upright piano, then evolves into a sequence of cues that add sub bass, low brass, cellos, flutes, taiko drum, and a reversed Rhodes piano. The video was produced by Tom Mason and Sarah Klein at Redglass Pictures, and has been viewed more than 54 million times on Facebook. SOUNDTRACK AVAILABLE on Apple Music, Bandcamp, and Spotify.
Sesame Street
Sesame Street’s “Autism: See Amazing in All Children!” series has received a 2016 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Interactive Media – Original Daytime Program or Series. Ryan created custom music scores for four of the featured films in the series, all of which were directed by Matt Bockelman. Three of the segments are hosted by Abby Cadabby (Thomas’s Story, Nasaiah’s Day, A Sibling Story), and the fourth (Family Friends) is geared more towards a parent’s perspective. All four videos, along with lots of other content, can be found at http://autism.sesamestreet.org/.
New York Historical Society
Ryan is the music composer for two separate short films that are part of the New-York Historical Society’s Vietnam War Exhibition. One of the films features Nic Ut and Kim Phuc discussing the now-iconic, 1973-Pulitzer-Prize-winning ‘Napalm Girl’ image of a girl running toward the camera – away from a recently napalmed village. Ut was the photographer, and Phuc was the girl; in the film, they offer a moving narrative of the events surrounding the taking of that photograph. The other film Ryan scored for the exhibition features FedEx founder Fred Smith discussing his experience as a marine officer serving in Vietnam, and how he witnessed first-hand how the military’s coordinated ground/air logistics could save lives. The exhibit ran at the New-York Historical Society from October 4, 2017 – April 22, 2018, and then traveled to the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh from April to September, 2019, and the National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, MO from Veterans Day 2019 to Memorial Day 2020. Produced by Redglass Pictures.
University of Washington
The University of Washington commissioned Ryan to create a triumphant opening score for their major live multimedia event, TOGETHER, which was held in a packed Alaska Airlines Arena at Hec Edmundson Pavilion at the Seattle campus on October 21, 2016. Ryan’s score celebrates the inspiring pioneering spirit of the Pacific Northwest, and specifically the myriad achievements by past and present individuals at the University of Washington. These achievements include: the historic men’s 8-man rowing gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics (the exciting story of which is told in Daniel Brown’s book The Boys in the Boat), numerous Nobel Prizes, and the inventions of color television, vinyl, ceramic tiles for the space shuttle, the Hepatitis B vaccine, long-term dialysis, Doppler ultrasound, synthetic rubber, and many others.
Oreo
Ryan created custom score music for this 60 second Oreo Thins commercial in August 2015, which was subsequently featured in this AdWeek article. The commercial was produced by North of New York. Post production by Whitehouse Post.
Nation Museum of American Jewish History
Ryan composed, performed, and recorded the music for 14 short films at the National Museum of American Jewish History’s Only In America Hall of Fame exhibit in Philadelphia. The museum’s grand opening to the public was November 26, 2010, and the Only In America biographical films are located on the museum’s first floor. The permanent exhibit was conceived and produced by Local Projects, and the films were directed, shot, and edited by Redglass Pictures. Ryan scored the biographical films about Louis Brandeis, Albert Einstein, Mordecai Kaplan, Sandy Koufax, Esteé Lauder, Emma Lazarus, Isaac Leeser, Golda Meir, Jonas Salk, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Rose Schneiderman, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Henrietta Szold, and Isaac Mayer Wise.