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 Adamsons is based in Chicago where his diverse talents and interests have led him to a career encompassing a wide variety of activities in performance, composition, education, and the music industry at large.
Ryan was a student of Scott Johnston and Jack Schantz while earning his B.S. degrees in Brass Performance and Jazz Studies from the University of Akron before moving on to DePaul University in Chicago where he earned his M.M. concentrating in Jazz Composition under Thomas Matta. He continues to be an active trumpet player whose performance credits include the Chicago Jazz Orchestra, Chicago Composers’ Big Band (founding member), Chicago Afro-Latin Jazz Ensemble, Rob Parton Big Band, Bob Lark Alumni Big Band, Tom Matta Big Band, Billy Wolfe Composers Octet and Tetradectet, Jazz Community Big Band, Reunion Jazz Orchestra, Daphne Willis, and his own band the Ryan Erik Adamsons Medium Ensemble. He is a Denis Wick Ambassador and plays Powell Custom trumpets and flugelhorns.
As a composer and arranger, Ryan’s prolific nature is matched only by his desire to try new sounds, styles, and ensembles. He writes for everything from solo instruments and brass quintets to mixed-media new art ensembles, and his long time involvement with the marching activity has inevitably led to annual arranging duties with various drum corps and marching bands. In the jazz idiom, he has over fifty commissioned and performed works for jazz ensemble from the professional level to middle school, with his educational works published by Kendor. His own twelve-piece band, the Ryan Erik Adamsons Medium Ensemble, features some of the best musicians in Chicago playing his arrangements and compositions of everything from jazz standards and salsa to funk and avant garde music.
Ryan is also a sought-after clinician and instructor with over two decades of experience working with groups of all sizes and styles, from small group jazz to championship-level drum corps including his current role as Brass Caption Manager for the Phantom Regiment. He is an accomplished author with several published articles both online and in print, and is co-editor of the bookRehearsing the Jazz Band, available from Meredith Music. In addition to being the 2020 Jazz Education Network President’s Service Award Winner, Ryan is the Conference Production Coordinator for JEN’s annual conference, he is on the Board of Directors for the Chicago Jazz Orchestra, and is the Jazz Area Manager for The Midwest Clinic.
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.