Kwamé Ryan was hired Tues­day as mu­sic di­rec­tor of the Char­lotte Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra in North Car­oli­na and giv­en a four-year con­tract to start with the 2024-25 sea­son.

The 53-year-old suc­ceeds Christo­pher War­ren-Green, who stepped down af­ter the 2021-22 sea­son, his 12th as mu­sic di­rec­tor.

Ryan, son of the late Pro­fes­sor Sel­wyn Ryan, will serve as mu­sic di­rec­tor des­ig­nate for the re­main­der of this sea­son and then de­vote 10-to-12 weeks per sea­son to the or­ches­tra.

Born in Toron­to when his par­ents were study­ing there, Ryan moved to Ugan­da with his par­ents as a ba­by and spent most of his youth in Trinidad and To­ba­go. He de­cid­ed to be­come a mu­si­cian af­ter see­ing Star Wars in 1977 and hear­ing John Williams’ score.

“Just the sound of the or­ches­tra in the cin­e­ma kind of blew my mind,” Ryan said.

His par­ents took him one sum­mer to the Toron­to Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra and he was al­so mes­merised by the con­duc­tor.

“I just leaned over to my mom, still sin­gle dig­its of age and said, ‘I want to do that. What­ev­er that guy is do­ing, that’s what I want to do,’” Ryan re­called.

“As­ton­ish­ing­ly, she be­lieved me. She took me se­ri­ous­ly even at that age. And she said: ‘OK, let’s get you a pi­ano. Let’s get you singing lessons, vi­o­lin lessons.’”

He at­tend­ed board­ing school in Eng­land and then Cam­bridge, stud­ied with Britain’s Na­tion­al Youth Or­ches­tra and worked with con­duc­tor Mark El­der and com­pos­er/con­duc­tor Pe­ter Eötvös.

Ryan con­duct­ed con­tem­po­rary mu­sic ex­clu­sive­ly, of­ten with the En­sem­ble Mod­ern, be­fore he be­came gen­er­al mu­sic di­rec­tor of the Freiburg Opera and Freiburg Phil­har­mon­ic Or­ches­tra in Ger­many from 1999 to 2003.

“It was a tri­al by fire,” said Ryan, who still lives in Freiburg.

“I en­tered there with no reper­toire to speak of, no opera reper­toire to speak of, and so every­thing I did, I was learn­ing. It was rough, it was very for­ma­tive.”

Ryan con­duct­ed the world pre­miere of Jake Heg­gie’s In­tel­li­gence at the Hous­ton Grand Opera in Oc­to­ber and is set to make his New York Phil­har­mon­ic de­but in May. He was mu­sic di­rec­tor of the Or­chestre Na­tion­al Bor­deaux Aquitaine from 2007-13 and mu­sic di­rec­tor of the Or­chestre Français des Je­unes from 2008-11.

Ryan had worked at The Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts in T&T since 2013, be­com­ing di­rec­tor, when he was called in Feb­ru­ary 2021 by John Clapp, Char­lotte’s vice pres­i­dent of artis­tic op­er­a­tions, and Car­rie Gra­ham, its man­ag­er of artis­tic plan­ning.

Ryan, who has a cousin in Char­lotte and an aunt and a cousin in Raleigh, made his Char­lotte de­but last Jan­u­ary and re­turned in No­vem­ber.

“The or­ches­tra liked him so much that we want­ed to in­vite him back to make sure he was a great fit,” Char­lotte Sym­pho­ny pres­i­dent David Fisk said.

“Pret­ty much im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter that sec­ond vis­it, we made the de­ci­sion that he was the one that we want­ed to of­fer the po­si­tion to. He is just a ter­rif­ic mu­si­cian and a very per­sua­sive com­mu­ni­ca­tor, both with what he does on the podi­um, but al­so in the way that he en­gages au­di­ences through his words.”