Kwamé Ryan’s first trip to Los Angeles in February 2026 was quite the trip. After escaping a blizzard in Charlotte, NC, battling LAX traffic on a time crunch, and sprinting several blocks to the Crypto.com Arena, he arrived just an hour before winning and accepting his first Grammy Award.  

Eight months later, he’s making a second—and much smoother—visit to LA for another big occasion: his Los Angeles Philharmonic debut. Conducting works by Mozart, Copland, and John Adams, Ryan says everything on his October program has “economical eloquence…. No note is wasted. No note is superfluous. There’s nothing extraneous. What they have put on the page is their message. 

“I’m always strongly invested in being an advocate for the composer and what they, in my reading, wanted to communicate with their music. I want to bring that to the audience wherever it is in the world with as much directness and honesty as I can.” 

In his own, most honest words, Ryan shares what he’s looking forward to about his big debut. 

Your program spans from classical to contemporary. What do you hope people take away from these concerts? 

What you see on the face of the program is three very distinct sound worlds. You have that sort of kinetic, propulsive American Minimalism of John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine, which is just a pure energy blast. The next piece is ostensibly 180 degrees in the opposite direction because it’s Mozart—his brilliant, but more intimate Sinfonia Concertante in E flat. After the break, we have Copland’s expansive, noble, and deeply human Third Symphony. 

When I look at this program, I see these contrasts, but I also notice what they have in common: clarity. All of these works seek very immediate access to the audience’s emotions. Nothing is encoded. Nothing is hidden. Nothing is lost in translation. All of these pieces are very rhetorical. They present themselves in a very open, honest way. And I think that the audience is going to pick that up as we progress through the evening. 

Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante features two of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s principal musicians, Bing Wang and Ben Ullery, as soloists. Can you speak to what makes this a particularly special opportunity?  

When I heard that the orchestra was constructing this ongoing theme about showcasing the membership of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, I was intrigued. I love working with orchestra musicians as soloists because it allows the audience to connect with them in a more intimate way than is usually possible. Listeners learn more about their orchestra through the personalities and personas of the soloists.  

Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante is uniquely suited to that engagement because he has written a dialogue between the violin and the viola. There’s no hierarchy there. They are presented as equals, not competitors. And the conversation that they have is intimate. Sometimes they finish each other’s sentences; they seemingly tease each other from time to time; they twist each other’s musical words. It’s typical Mozart—a little theatrical, often humorous. 

Mozart also asks the violist to tune the viola a semitone higher than normal. When you do that, it takes on a different, more penetrating tone, and it matches the projection of the violin more. (The viola is dusky, woody, and darker in its natural tuning.) He’s really gone the extra length to ensure that that dialogue plays out on an even playing field.

Copland’s Third is often regarded as one of the greatest American symphonies, a statement on symphonic identity in the US. What makes this concert a timely experience?

Well, the symphony was written between 1944 and 1946, and World War II ended in 1945, so this is a piece that is not just looking forward with a vision for the future and the optimism of the end of a war. It’s also looking back and taking stock of the devastation that was left behind in the wake of that worldwide conflict. The piece offers uplift in its forward-looking aspect but also offers consolation in its reflective aspect. I find those contrasts extremely moving.  

In 2026, we’re living in a time of significant uncertainty, and I think people could use that sense of hope and consolation that things might be tough now, but we’re going to move forward. We’re going to move past this, and it’s going to be okay. 

There are moments when there’s a melody being played that sounds like one instrument. It’s actually being played by multiple sections and going across horizontally. For me, that’s the definition of community: No one entity sings all the notes. The melody is shared. It’s a community song. 

Copland knits that [concept of togetherness] into the symphony in such a moving way that it never ceases to leave me in a different place from where it collected me at the beginning. Hopefully by the end of the journey, the audience feels brighter, more hopeful, more optimistic, and lighter than they were. 

For our audience members meeting you for the first time, can you describe what makes you, you? How have your personal experiences impacted your outlook on life and music?  

I was born in Toronto, Canada, but only spent 30 days there before my parents moved to Africa for my dad’s job. He was a political scientist and an author. (I have no memory of my early years there, but that’s how I managed to have an African first name—my parents had Africa on the brain when I was born!) After a few years in Uganda, they fled the regime of Idi Amin and returned to their childhood home in Trinidad and Tobago, which is where I really grew up. At 15 years old, I left for more schooling and university in England, and later I moved to Germany on a language scholarship. 

What that has left me with is an incredible openness to the world, to influence, and to experiences of varied and disparate nature. And an extremely eclectic taste in music! 

When you hear Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony for the first time played on steel pans, you’re definitely going to bring a different color to your appreciation of everything that follows. It’s the same for Mozart—my first experiences playing Mozart, if not at the piano, was on the steel pans.  

Trinidad is a country that is 50% East Indian origin, 50% African origin, so I also grew up with a lot of Indian music in my ears. My mum and dad had a huge classical record collection, which is where I got bitten by the classical bug, but I did not experience classical music in any kind of ivory tower. I experienced it as one tile in a mosaic of musical influences that has continued to serve me to this day in my approach to new sounds, new interpretations of old sounds, and [the balance of] tradition, preservation, and innovation. All these things are part of my DNA and my journey as a human being. 

What are you looking forward to most about performing at Walt Disney Concert Hall? 

I have an amateur interest in architecture, so Walt Disney Concert Hall has been high on my list of venues to visit. I haven’t even attended a concert there, so to experience the Hall for the first time from the stage is a dream come true. 

I’ve heard a lot about the immediacy of the sound in the Hall, the way that it reveals detail without being too clinical. Conducting colleagues talk amongst each other about wonderful acoustics around the world, so I’m intrigued to discover how this colorful and contrasting program will be delivered in the Hall’s incredible space. 

Conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic in its own home is also its own privilege. It’s an orchestra that I’ve admired from a distance for many years, so I’m really excited to finally have the opportunity to collaborate.