Ryan Beard is currently Instrumental Music Editor at the Neil A. Kjos Music Company in San Diego, California. A native San Diegan, Ryan began his music studies in elementary school and continued throughout high school in the public school system. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Composition with a minor in Music Theory from The Cleveland Institute of Music where he studied with composers Donald Erb and Margaret Brouwer. His graduate studies in composition were at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, where his primary teachers were Eugene O’Brien and Don Freund. Ryan has participated in masterclasses with Aaron Jay Kernis, Oliver Knussen, Christopher Rouse, Michael Torke, Joan Tower, and Mario Davidovsky, among others. He was commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra to write a celebratory overture for that group’s tenth anniversary. The Cleveland Plain Dealer hailed it as “an effective essay with ardent gestures and open-hearted lyricism, but with an atmospheric sense all [its] own.” Additional praise from Mrs. Kole's 7th grade English class at Thurgood Marshall Middle School (San Diego, CA) claims Mr. Beard “must be a very skilled composer” because he “made it possible for a bassoon to play with the cello and viola.” Active as a performer and conductor, Ryan is principal French horn with the La Jolla Symphony, as well as its librarian. He has performed with Orchestra Nova (formerly the San Diego Chamber Orchestra), San Diego Symphony, San Diego Opera, and Classics Philharmonia. He was a 2019 fellow in the Los Angeles Film Conducting Intensive workshop where he studied under Angel Velez, Jorge Mester, Conrad Pope, and William Ross. He conducts San Diego's Finest Brass Ensemble's Christmas Brass & Organ concerts as well as ensembles across the USA and Europe in performances of his own works for orchestra and concert band. He has also conducted numerous musicals with theater companies across southern California. In his spare time, Ryan enjoys reading about science and astronomy, spending time with his wife Coreena and their retired racing greyhound “Jess,” and committing one-liners from Frasier to memory.