Biographical information
Voice work
Anne L Ryan is an Irish vocalist and composer who focuses on ancient, folk and modern sounds for the embodied a capella voice. She is fascinated with how the body makes sound and its capacity to express our deepest fears and greatest joys. In her teaching she touches the voice through texture, tone and pitch encouraging a sonorous resonance in that individual's voice. She is a member of the Natural Voice Practitioner's Network. She gives voice workshops and private voice tuition in both Cambridge and Comberton, Cambridgeshire.
With over twenty years experience as a performer in the UK and Europe, Anne has been teaching voice in Cambridge for the past five years. An intuitive and natural singer, Anne has developed her vocal teaching knowledge through training and working with Sarah Paterson at BodySingingSoul, Cambridge, UK and Caitlin Matthews, Celtic sound healer, Oxford. She continues to learn, explore and free her voice with Margaret Pikes, London.
Performance Work
Anne L Ryan is a singer and songwriter who has been involved with acoustic and folk music for over 25 years, performing in clubs, pubs, concerts, festivals and other venues since she was 14. A self-taught musician, she has an outstanding sensitivity for the interpretation of song a cappella. Her innovative approach has been strongly influenced by the Irish sean nos (old style) tradition, particularly singers like Shosamh O hEanai and Maire Mac an tSaoi and Dublin street singers Liam Weldon and Frank Harte. She is interested in all areas of ethnic music, most particularly Irish and Spanish a cappella voice.
Raised in Dublin, she formed an all girl trio called "Velvet Trend", performing in pubs, concerts and on Radio Telefis Eireann (RTE) as a teenager. One of the highlights of their music alliance was being runner up in the original song competition at the Kilkenny Beer Festival with "Life is too short". She joined "Pangur", a five-piece band playing traditional Irish music, as female vocalist, playing the Irish music scene for three years. Parting from Pangur she formed a duo with Tomas Lynch, songwriter and uilleann piper, contributing their own subtle style to the same scene. Living for a period of three years in the West of Ireland Anne became involved in the local traditional Irish music and sean nos scene, meeting performers such as De Danann, Mary Bergin, Mary Black and Maura O'Connell in the famous Hughes Bar, An Spideal. Work with the United Nations brought Anne to Vienna and whilst there she performed solo in cafés and bars, teasing out a new following locally for her music style. Regular appearances at "Tunnel" and the "Podium Café" brought about a musical collaboration with Suzanne Chawner, an English songwriter recently settled in Vienna. Moving to England, where the folk club scene beckoned, Anne lived in Oxford. She played as a solo performer initially and eventually teamed up with Colin Edwards, using the name Pangur once more. Playing locally they recorded an 8- track cassette called "Out for the night" in 1988. It was around this that Anne founded the Oxford Acoustic Music Club at the Jericho Tavern, Jericho, Oxford and promoted such artists as The Oyster Band, Dick Gaughan, Martin Carthy, June Tabor and Martin Simpson, Richard Thompson, and Clive Gregson & Christine Collister.
A move to Cambridge in 1990, meant all work and very little time for music. Singing was put on the back boiler for a few years. A slow and gradual involvement in the Cambridge Folk Club gave Anne an opportunity to sing once more --- at least a few songs a month. Eventually the organisation baton of the CFC was passed over to her in 1998 by the then organisers Andrew Webster and Myke Clifford, and once more, Anne was promoting the best in acoustic folk music extending the organisational committee to eight members in all. It was during this time that she founded two other clubs, the Cambridge Blues and Acoustic Club and Acoustic Routes with Bernard Hoskin, Jim Schwabe, Alan Bailey, Richard Wildman, Howard Roscoe and Tom Colborn. At last, Anne had returned to promoting, playing and songwriting in earnest; and after a long wait, she has made a CD called Moving Tone. It is this that is the current focus of her musical energy as a duo, trio or quartet.