biography

Kwamé Ryan is a Grammy® Award-winning conductor, currently in his second season as Music Director of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra. Ryan formerly held the position of General Music Director of Freiburg Opera, Germany from 1999 to 2003, and served as Musical and Artistic Director of the Orchestre National Bordeaux-Aquitaine, France from 2007 to 2013. As a guest conductor in Germany, he has conducted the Radio Orchestras of Stuttgart and Bavaria, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Staatsoper Saarbrücken and Staatsoper Stuttgart, while in France, he has worked at Opera de la Bastille, Opera de Lyon and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Work in the U.S and the U.K. has taken him to the Symphony Orchestras of Baltimore, Dallas, Detroit, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Houston, Boston Lyric Opera, English National Opera and the London Philharmonia.

He has been a regular guest of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Proms and Dutch National Opera at which he has worked with the Residence Orchestra, The Hague and the Rotterdam Philharmonic. In 2024, he returned to La Monnaie, Brussels for the revival of Kris De Foort’s The Time of our Singing, his 2021 premiere of which won an International Opera Award as World Premiere of that year. At the 68th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, Ryan’s recording of Heggie: Intelligence for Houston Grand Opera was recognised as the Best Opera Recording, winning him his first Grammy Award.

The 2025-2026 season sees returns to Washington National Opera and the New York Philharmonic as well as his debut at the Metropolitan Opera.