
photo by Sakurako Kanemitsu
Short Bio
Ryan Suleiman was born to Lebanese and Mid-Western parents in California. His music engages with dreaming, the natural world, and the understated beauty of everyday life. His one-act chamber opera, Moon, Bride, Dogs, was described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “a gem” with “an aesthetic that is at once so strange and so accessible.” While his artistic interests vary, he seeks ways of conveying the simultaneity of beauty and dread that characterizes our times.
Suleiman is a three-time Finalist of the ASCAP Young Composer Awards and two-time winner of the FeNAM Student Composers Competition. His music has been performed at several festivals, including SICPP (Boston), June in Buffalo (NY), and the NANOworks Opera Workshop (Atlanta) among others. In addition, he has worked on commissions and collaborations on chamber, symphonic, and operatic works with numerous groups, including West Edge Opera, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Daedalus Quartet, Ensemble Mise-en, Symphony d’Oro, and Camerata Capistrano. His piano cycle, Under Moonlight, was recorded by Jai Jeffryes in his solo album, Amethyst, distributed by Naxos.
Recent projects include an opera called The School for Girls Who Lost Everything in the Fire with writer Cristina Fríes (in progress), a Piano Concerto, and a work for socially-distanced soprano and chamber ensemble that explores collective feelings of isolation through the poetry of Gibran Khalil Gibran. Ryan completed his Ph.D. at University of California, Davis. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Berklee College of Music and has held teaching positions at the Sacramento State School of Music and UC Davis. He also teaches composition privately. Ryan currently resides in Boston with his partner and several furry animals. More information available at www.ryansuleiman.com.