Championed by Gramophone as “a chameleon-like virtuoso,” Ryan Scott has performed extensively across the world.
A quick glance at 21st-Century Canadian Snare Drum might lead one to to envision something audaciously limited; its cover and title seem to suggest two discs’ worth of solo snare drum pieces.
The truth of the matter is something different—few of its constituent pieces use the snare drum exclusively. Of course, the instrument is the centrepiece throughout the album—it’s about the art of the drumming itself, but most works include minimal auxiliary instrumentation, electroacoustics, vocalizations or some combination thereof, alongside a wide variety of techniques spanning traditional virtuosity to inquisitive-minded peculiarity. As such, the snare drum solo serves almost as a conceptual
Scott enlists 14 Canadians with a wide assortment of aesthetic orientations. Andrew Staniland‘s semi-palindromic “ANTIGRAVITYDRUM,” the composer’s second snare and electronics piece for Scott, sets the scene for the album. Staniland also avoids the drum’s titular feature for the piece’s full duration, and the buoyant electronic part is tacet for the frst third of the piece making its entry quite the occasion. On the opposite end of the release is “The Far Night.fm,” an homage to the 1990 film Pump Up The Volume celebrated composer Nicole Lizée. Lizée’s characteristic approach blends surreal, often referential electronics with live instrumentation and here, woozy analogue synths and slowed-down voice smears evoking early Oneohtrix from Point Never wrap themselves around Scott’s nimble percussion and vocal interjections.
Between those works, there’s Brian Current‘s “Infantry“, which delves into the militaristic implications of the snare drum, deploying pre-recorded texts by soldiers from different backgrounds and time periods either extracted from interviews or read by voice actors from historical letters. Michael Oesterle‘s cheekily titled “hush” is deceptively straightforward, avoiding the extended techniques and electronic intervention that others have chosen to adopt. Yet the Montréaler uses this ostensible simplicity as a vehicle for mind-bending intricacy.
Known for her introspective and often delicate music, Anna Höstman‘s contribution also opts for an unadorned acoustic sound with one crucial difference. The disarming “pebbles” sees Scott whistling and humming fragmenting melodic material atop scattered furries of brushed snare. Christina Volpini‘s suitably haunting “only ghosts” operates from the perspective of (according to her program notes) “the drum as a resonant body, and in particular, the ways that snares can amplify beating patterns to augment rhythms emerging from the drum itself.” As such, this striking, sustained work sees Scott transducing sine tones through the instrument, applying tuning forks to its surface and also playing harmonica.
Award-winner Bekah Simms “Skinscape IV “is—in the composer’s own words—”the fourth in a series of works that examine the interaction between the soloist and an electronic, disembodied version of their instruments.” Scott plays the snare drum with saxophone reeds while a thicket of crepuscular snare-derived sound swirls around him. And that’s just half of this keenly curated set. Revered composers Amy Brandon, Monica Pearce, Vincent Ho, Emilie Cecilia LeBel, Jason Doell, Hiroki Tsurumoto and Kati Agócs each provide pieces as well.
Once championed by Gramophone as “a chameleon-like virtuoso,” Dr. Ryan Scott has performed extensively as a marimba and multi-percussion soloist in contemporary music festivals in Europe, Japan, China, Indonesia, South Africa, the UK and The Netherlands. He has also performed as guest soloist in over 25 different percussion concerti with the Esprit Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, The Hyogo Performing Arts Centre Orchestra, The Austin Symphony and numerous other orchestras and chamber ensembles across North America.
A staple of Toronto’s contemporary music community, he has performed in over 400 world premieres. In addition to his work as a regular guest artist with NEXUS, Principal Percussionist of the Esprit Orchestra and Percussionist in the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra since 1996, he is also a sought-after chamber musician and teacher
A core member of Continuum Contemporary Music (founded 1985), he also serves the organization as Artistic Director. Through his work at Continuum, Ryan received the 2020 and 2021 “Toronto Musician of the Year Award” from the TMA local 149, Toronto Musicians’ Union. Ryan studied with Russell Hartenberger and Robin Engelman at the University of Toronto (BMus, MMus, DMA). He teaches at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto and at the National Youth Orchestra of Canada.
