Music Director & Orchestra

Maestro Ryan Murray

Ryan Murray is the Music Director and Conductor of the Auburn Symphony, the Artistic Director of Music in the Mountains, and the Principal Pops Conductor of the Modesto Symphony. Recent guest conducting engagements the Mendocino Music Festival, the
Midsummer Mozart Festival, the Sacramento Philharmonic and cover conducting the Baltimore Symphony.

A passionate music educator, Ryan currently serves as Assistant Professor of Music at CSU Sacramento as Director of Orchestra and Opera, and is the conductor for the Sacramento Youth Symphony’s premier orchestra. An award-winning opera conductor, Ryan is the past Music Director of Opera Modesto and Fresno Grand Opera.  
 
Ryan is a past winner of the Vienna Philharmonic’s prestigious Ansbacher Fellowship for Young Conductors, and spent the summer in residence at the 2014 Salzburg Festival. Ryan was awarded second place in the 2019 American Prize for Professional Orchestral Conducting, and has garnered national recognition for his dynamic, compelling performances of contemporary opera as the winner of the 2017 American Prize in Opera Conducting. With an enthusiasm for film scores, Ryan enjoys the unique challenges of conducting movies in concert and is a Disney & ICM Approved Conductor. Recent and upcoming performances include The Original Star Wars Trilogy, Fantasia, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and more.
 
Ryan holds degrees, summa cum laude, in Bassoon and Voice Performance from CSU Sacramento and also holds a master’s degree, with distinction, in Music Business from the Berklee College of Music. Ryan has previously attended the Cabrillo Festival’s Conductors Workshop, and was one of just eight conductors worldwide to be invited to the Musiikin aika Masterclass in Finland. He previously attended the Contemporary Music Symposium led by Alan Gilbert featuring the New York Philharmonic, the Aurora Chamber Festival in Sweden, the Lucerne Festival’s Conducting Masterclass in Switzerland and the Eastman School of Music’s Summer Conducting Institute.