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For orchestra conductor, there’s magic in the baton

Herbert L. White, The Charlotte Post -- 

Music made Kwamé Ryan a global citizen.

Ryan, who makes his debut as Charlotte Symphony's music director this weekend with a pair of concerts, was born in Canada, raised in Trinidad and studied in England and Germany. Those experiences put Ryan in position to make a mark with one of the South's emerging orchestras. He will conduct two performances of Wang Jie's Symphonic Overture "America, the Beautiful," Brahms's Symphony No. 1, and Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme, April 5-6 at Belk Theater, 130 N. Tryon St.

"I'm really excited about engaging with the community and enjoying being part of a community that I have observed to be very vibrant, very diverse, very curious and arts-interested in particular," Ryan said via telephone from Freiburg, Germany, a city on the Swiss border. "I bring and offer myself within that community as the person that I am with all my mixed-up background: A little bit of Caribbean, a little bit of European, interest in Asian music, interest in jazz. All of that I bring to the experience of being part of the Charlotte community with the orchestra."

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