About

A native of Springfield, Virginia, Ryan Erik Adamsons is a freelance musician based in Chicago.  Ryan has been involved with music from an early age, most notably as the inspiration for his sister's grade school "Reflections" contest award-winning composition, "My Brother Thinks He's a Dog."  In retrospect it was less that he thought he was a dog and more that he and the dog were on the same level (literally and figuratively) so they hung out a lot and thus shared the same traits of barking, panting, chewing on bones, etc., but in the past few months Ryan has pretty much stopped all that and assimilated himself into human society such as it is.

 

Emerging from canine to bipedal culture, Ryan did a bunch of things like eat, sleep, shower, and brush his teeth; often on a daily basis.  When he wasn't doing these he was probably doing something among the following:

 

• Something fancy with a drum corps (marching Bluecoats 1998-2002, teaching Bluecoats 2003-2008 and 2011, teaching Santa Clara Vanguard 2012-2019, teaching and writing Vanguard Cadets 2018-2022, teaching Phantom Regiment 2020-present)

 

• Earning Bachelor of Science Degrees in Jazz Studies and Brass Performance under Jack Schantz and Scott Johnston respectively at the University of Akron (2000-2006)

 

• Earning his Masters Degree in Jazz Composition under Tom Matta at DePaul University in Chicago (2007-2009)

 

• Teaching music in most of the 50 states (discounted rates to Hawaii), Canada, and Japan

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• Performing with groups such as the Tom Matta Big Band, Bob Lark Alumni Big Band, Chicago Composers' Big Band, Chicago Jazz Orchestra, Billy Wolfe Composers' Octet and Tetradectet, Jazz Community Big Band, Daphne Willis, Nootka Sound, and his own group the Medium Ensemble

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• Writing a whole lot of music for a whole lot of groups and individuals in a whole lot of styles

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• Working with various arts organizations including as Jazz Area Manager for The Midwest Clinic, on the Board of Directors for the Chicago Jazz Orchestra, and various roles with the Jazz Education Network such as the Production Coordinator for the annual JEN Conference

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• Working throughout the music industry including ongoing relationships with Denis Wick, Hammond Design, and others.

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• Getting hoity-toity awards that make him slightly uncomfortable such as winning the 2015 American Jazz Museum Jazz Palette Composition Contest, being awarded the 2020 JEN President's Service Award, and that whole "winning DCI and every caption he was involved in in both World and Open Class" thing back in 2018

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• Probably some other important stuff he's forgetting

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Other than that Ryan is a bald mustachioed gentleman who likes coffee, beer, whiskey, cooking, and tactilely soft things.  He is a Denis Wick Ambassador and endorses Powell Custom Trumpets and Flugelhorns.  His spirit animal is the American Pika and he can't rule out that he enjoys long walks on the beach since he's never really gone on one, but he does one day hope to quit writing about himself in the third person and live on a farm with lots of room to run with the other dogs.