Balancing the extremes of the familiar and the experimental, music by Ryan Chase has been described as "the stuff of memory" (The Herald-Times) and hailed by the New York Times as a "whirlwind of deftly explored contrasts of mood, from bombastic to introverted." Though sonically diverse, his body of work is unified by a fascination with virtuosity and an affirmation of melody. Chase's pieces have been performed by such artists and ensembles as Alarm Will Sound, the Albany Symphony Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, the Chelsea Symphony, Contemporaneous, the Flux Quartet, Juventas, the Mexico City Woodwind Quintet, rogue collective, SONAR New Music Ensemble, and soprano Ariadne Greif.
Coming to classical music as a jazz pianist with a passion for film, he is an avid and eclectic collaborator. His music has been presented at the Cannes Film Festival, Tanglewood, the Aspen Music Festival, the Copland House, the Mizzou International Composers Festival, the Poets Out Loud Festival, the Resonant Bodies Festival, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Oregon Bach Festival, and on PBS. With Jeremy Podgursky and Ben Bolter, he was a founding member of Holographic, an independent new-music collective ensemble based in Bloomington, Indiana. He remains active as a pianist, recently performing his chamber and solo piano music with the Society for New Music.
Chase's accolades include a Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Fromm Commission from the Harvard Fromm Music Foundation, two consecutive BMI Student Composer Awards (2011 William Schuman Prize for Most Outstanding Entry), two ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, the Audience Choice Award from the American Composers Orchestra Underwood Readings, the Northridge Composition Prize, the Brian M. Israel Prize from the Society for New Music, a Theodore Presser Undergraduate Scholar Award, the 2012 Suzanne and Lee Ettelson Composer's Award, and 1st Prize in the National Association of Composers USA Young Composers Competition, among others.
Chase began formally studying composition at 16, when he was accepted into the Mannes School of Music's college division under Keith Fitch. He continued his graduate studies at Indiana University (MM 2010, DM 2014), where his primary teachers were Claude Baker, David Dzubay, Don Freund, and Gabriela Ortíz. He studied computer music with John Gibson, Jeffrey Hass, and Alicyn Warren as well as conducting with Thomas Baldner. He currently teaches at Colgate University as Assistant Professor of Composition.
Coming to classical music as a jazz pianist with a passion for film, he is an avid and eclectic collaborator. His music has been presented at the Cannes Film Festival, Tanglewood, the Aspen Music Festival, the Copland House, the Mizzou International Composers Festival, the Poets Out Loud Festival, the Resonant Bodies Festival, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Oregon Bach Festival, and on PBS. With Jeremy Podgursky and Ben Bolter, he was a founding member of Holographic, an independent new-music collective ensemble based in Bloomington, Indiana. He remains active as a pianist, recently performing his chamber and solo piano music with the Society for New Music.
Chase's accolades include a Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Fromm Commission from the Harvard Fromm Music Foundation, two consecutive BMI Student Composer Awards (2011 William Schuman Prize for Most Outstanding Entry), two ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, the Audience Choice Award from the American Composers Orchestra Underwood Readings, the Northridge Composition Prize, the Brian M. Israel Prize from the Society for New Music, a Theodore Presser Undergraduate Scholar Award, the 2012 Suzanne and Lee Ettelson Composer's Award, and 1st Prize in the National Association of Composers USA Young Composers Competition, among others.
Chase began formally studying composition at 16, when he was accepted into the Mannes School of Music's college division under Keith Fitch. He continued his graduate studies at Indiana University (MM 2010, DM 2014), where his primary teachers were Claude Baker, David Dzubay, Don Freund, and Gabriela Ortíz. He studied computer music with John Gibson, Jeffrey Hass, and Alicyn Warren as well as conducting with Thomas Baldner. He currently teaches at Colgate University as Assistant Professor of Composition.
