Kwamé Ryan is a Grammy Award-winning conductor, currently in his third season as Music Director of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra. Ryan held the position of General Music Director of Freiburg Opera in Germany from 1999 to 2003 and served as Music and Artistic Director of the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine in 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. In France, he worked at Opéra Bastille, Opéra National de Lyon, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Work in the US and the UK has taken him to the orchestras of New York, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Indianapolis, Atlanta, and Houston, Boston Lyric Opera, English National Opera, the London Philharmonia, and the BBC Proms. He is a regular guest with Washington National Opera and Dutch National Opera.

Ryan was born in Canada and educated in Trinidad and Tobago and the UK. A recipient of international awards for outstanding work in music education, he has served as Director of Trinidad and Tobago’s Academy for the Performing Arts and Musical Director of the National Youth Orchestra of France, where he was made a knight in France’s prestigious Order of Arts and Letters. Under his musical direction, La Monnaie’s 2021 production of Kris Defoort’s The Time of Our Singing was named World Premiere of the Year at the International Opera Awards, and Houston Grand Opera’s recording of Jake Heggie’s Intelligence was awarded the 2026 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording.

The 2026/27 season sees his debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Milwaukee Symphony as well as returns to Dutch National Opera and the Cincinnati Symphony.