Kathleen Ryan

What can you say about a pianist whose first favorite sound was made by marbles rolling in an aluminum dishpan? (The younger sillier person in the first photo.)
Kathleen Ryan has played snare drum in a marching band; written & performed singing telegrams; improvised music for modern dancers; & composed a folk rock opera based on the Tristan & Isolde legend.
After a very brief fling as a folk singer, & a longer interlude as a classical pianist, Kathleen began searching for ways to “sing the piano” — to transform the piano into a medium as intimately expressive as the human voice.
“When I am composing,” she says, “I don’t necessarily hear music inside. Instead, I experience a subtle dissatisfaction until the sounds my hands create match the deeper emotion I feel within.”
Kathleen has published five recordings: A Handfull of Quietness (transformational), The Rebirth of Light (Christmas), Under the Greenwood Tree (soothing),  Drivin’! (rambunctious), and Passages (soothing transformational).
Her music is influenced by the folk music of the British Isles; blues masters Robert Johnson & John Lee Hooker; American composers Gershwin, Hammerstein, & Copland; American shape note hymns; Schubert & Fauré, of course; & the polyrhythmic coin boxes on the Providence RI buses.