Nash Ryder
Hailed by violinist James Ehnes as “mesmerizing,” Dr. Nash Ryder began playing violin at the age of seven. At the New England Conservatory of Music Preparatory School, he studied with world-renowned pedagogues Donald Weilerstein and Anait Arutunian. Under the tutelage of Ronald Copes and Frank Huang, he later earned his B.M. and M.M. in violin performance from the Juilliard School. Nash was the first student in the institution’s history to receive both undergraduate honors and an accelerated graduate degree. He later received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Eastman School of Music as a student of Robin Scott in the spring of 2021.
Featured on the highly acclaimed NPR radio show ‘From the Top’ in his youth, Nash has since performed in a wide variety of venues internationally and nationally, performing in festivals such as the Conservatoire Américain de Fontainebleau in France, the Lake District Music Festival in England, the Sarasota Music Festival, the Bowdoin International Music Festival, Meadowmount School of Music and the Colorado College Summer Music Festival. He has been a featured soloist with the Bangor Symphony Orchestra, Ars Flores Symphony Orchestra, the New England String Ensemble, White Mountain Bach Festival Orchestra, the Frost Symphony Orchestra, I Solisti di Miami, and the Colorado College SMF Orchestra.
Nash has shared the stage with artists such as Josh Groban, Linda Eder, Joshua Bell, Itzhak Perlman, Joseph Silverstein, Ilya Kaler, Jeffrey Zeigler, and members of the Ying quartet, among many other world-class artists. Moreover, he has performed under the batons of conductors Gerard Schwarz, Jeanette Sorrell, Gemma New, Michael Tilson Thomas, Joseph Colaneri, Pablo Heras-Casado, Alan Gilbert, Gianandrea Noseda, Thomas Adès, David Robertson, Matthias Pintscher, Jeffery Kahane and Scott Yoo. He has had the privilege of working closely with composers Michael Finnissy and Peter Maxwell-Davies on several of their works.
Dedicated to igniting positive social change through music, Nash is currently involved in initiatives that support underserved children and other vital causes through teaching and various awareness efforts. For the past several years, he has organized fundraisers for children and teens with developmental disabilities at Ashley’s Learning Centre in the Turks and Caicos Islands. He has helped raise over $150,000 for this wonderful cause.
Former violinist and rotating concertmaster of the New World Symphony, Dr. Ryder has also played with the Florida Orchestra, the Portland Symphony Orchestra, the Venice Symphony and the Punta Gorda Symphony. In addition to his work as a NWS Teaching Artist, Nash is on the NEMC faculty at the Snow Pond Center for the Arts and SummerKeys, both in his home state of Maine. In 2023, he was appointed Instructor of Violin at the University of Northern Iowa.
He will be teaching - August 4-8