Composers in Residence

Zephyr Brass Collective’s mission is to create new chamber works for brass quintet that help to redefine what is considered standard repertoire, and help to create a wider appeal for chamber music. This mission isn’t possible without collaboration with amazing composers.

Below you’ll find more on our composers in residence, what works they’ve been creating, and ideas on where we might be headed in the future. Follow the links to be able to purchase the sheet music to play with your own group!

Interested in helping us make this happen? We can always use financial support to help commission new works. Reach out to us for more information on how you can help us with this mission.

Ryan Erik Adamsons

Website

Works performed by Zephyr Brass Collective:

A native of Springfield, Virginia, Ryan Erik Adamsons is a freelance musician based in Chicago.  Ryan has been involved with music from an early age, most notably as the inspiration for his sister's grade school "Reflections" contest award-winning composition, "My Brother Thinks He's a Dog."  In retrospect it was less that he thought he was a dog and more that he and the dog were on the same level (literally and figuratively) so they hung out a lot and thus shared the same traits of barking, panting, chewing on bones, etc., but in the past few months Ryan has pretty much stopped all that and assimilated himself into human society such as it is.

 

Emerging from canine to bipedal culture, Ryan did a bunch of things like eat, sleep, shower, and brush his teeth; often on a daily basis.  When he wasn't doing these he was probably doing something among the following:

 

  • Something fancy with a drum corps (marching Bluecoats 1998-2002, teaching Bluecoats 2003-2008 and 2011, teaching Santa Clara Vanguard 2012-2019, teaching and writing Vanguard Cadets 2018-2022, teaching Phantom Regiment 2020-present)

 

  • Earning Bachelor of Science Degrees in Jazz Studies and Brass Performance under Jack Schantz and Scott Johnston respectively at the University of Akron (2000-2006)

 

  • Earning his Masters Degree in Jazz Composition under Tom Matta at DePaul University in Chicago (2007-2009)

 

  • Teaching music in most of the 50 states (discounted rates to Hawaii), Canada, and Japan

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  • Writing a whole lot of music for a whole lot of groups and individuals in a whole lot of styles

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  • Working with various arts organizations including as Jazz Area Manager for The Midwest Clinic, on the Board of Directors for the Chicago Jazz Orchestra, and various roles with the Jazz Education Network such as the Production Coordinator for the annual JEN Conference

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  • Working throughout the music industry including ongoing relationships with Denis Wick, Hammond Design, and others.

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  • Getting hoity-toity awards that make him slightly uncomfortable such as winning the 2015 American Jazz Museum Jazz Palette Composition Contest, being awarded the 2020 JEN President's Service Award, and that whole "winning DCI and every caption he was involved in in both World and Open Class" thing back in 2018

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  • Probably some other important stuff he's forgetting

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Other than that Ryan is a bald mustachioed gentleman who likes coffee, beer, whiskey, cooking, and tactilely soft things.  He is a Denis Wick Ambassador and endorses Powell Custom Trumpets and Flugelhorns.  His spirit animal is the American Pika and he can't rule out that he enjoys long walks on the beach since he's never really gone on one, but he does one day hope to quit writing about himself in the third person and live on a farm with lots of room to run with the other dogs.

Shanyse Strickland

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Shanyse Strickland is a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, composer and arranger. Freelancing andcomposing are currently her two main passions as a musician and a creator.

Originally from Akron, OH, Shanyse has led a multi-faceted career through mediums of performance, composing and recording. She received her undergraduate degree in Music Performance at Youngstown State University, along with a Masters degree from Duquesne University and an Artist Diploma from Montclair State University, all focusing on horn. Some highlights of her career include playing trombone and flute for the reuniting Ohio Players, winning the 2016 International Horn Symposium’s jazz competition, performing at the 2019 and 2021 Heisman Trophy Ceremony aired on ESPN, performing and recording for legendary artists such as the hip-hop legend Black Thought of the Roots, and touring with the Broadway Sinfonettia playing principal horn in the production of Into the Spider-verse. Shanyse is currently a freelancing and teaching New Jersey and New York City.

Shanyse has written and published over twenty-five original works, one of which was premiered by the horn section of the New Haven Symphony titled Moods. In early March of 2023, Shanyse’s piece titled Afrofuturism was selected to be performed at the Music by Women Festival at the Mississippi University for Women. The piece became more than just music when it accompanied a music video produced by commissioner and colleague Theresa May, which has won multiple film awards in the greater Ohio, including acceptance into the Greater Cleveland Urban Film Festival (GCUFF). Shanyse’s work, When I’m Older was commissioned to be inserted in a book highlighting living Black composers that is accessible to beginning horn players in high school or middle school. Shanyse’s newest work, Empathy, was premiered in March 2023 by the Seattle Symphony horn section. Shanyse also arranged a pop-tune for Ghengis Barbie, which was released on their most recent album titled Songs for Summer. Shanyse continues to write for her colleagues and studios in various universities, establishing new chamber music for common and not so common orchestrations.