Kathleen Ryan’s first favorite sound was created by marbles rolling in an aluminum dishpan.  Her first favorite music was George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. She began piano lessons at age seven and performed it while in junior high school.  During her student years, she also played snare drums in a marching band; composed a folk rock opera based on the Tristan and Isolde legend; sang and danced in a liturgical drama presented at the Ohio State Fair; improvised music to accompany avant garde dancers; and wrote and performed singing telegrams.  After a brief fling as a folk singer, and a somewhat longer interlude as a classical pianist, she finally recognized the one constant in her myriad musical activities: she is a composer.  She has published two recordings of her piano compositions.  The first, a handful of quietness (1993) was featured in the Emmy-winning Iowa Public Television special, The Four Seasons.  The Rebirth of Light (2007) is garnering glowing reviews of its probing of traditional Christmas carols.  Under the Greenwood Tree was released in 2009.  Her recent composition, Verbs, is a set of preludes for piano left hand alone.  Book 1 of Verbs premiered in November 2007.  She was selected as the Professional Music Teachers of New Mexico Commissioned Composer for 2008 to compose Book 2, which premiered in November 2008.  She is currently at work on One Pulse of the Prairie, a suite for piano dedicated to pianist Meara Oberdieck.  She won first place in the MTAC Composers Today contest in 2002 and 2004, and composed the winning hymn tune for the Duke University Waldo Beach Hymnody Competition in 2003.  Her education includes a B.A. in Music and Anthropology from Duke University and an M.A. in Music from The Claremont Graduate university.  She has studied piano with Alice Shapiro, Ivan Waldbauer, and Barbara Lister-Sink.  The unusual mix of ingredients influencing her compositions reflect her eclectic background as a musician: folk songs of the British Isles; blues masters Robert Johnson and John Lee Hooker; American composers Gershwin, Hammerstein, and Copland; a cappella gospel music and 19th century shape note hymns;  Mozart and Schubert; and the polythythmic coin boxes on the Providence, Rhode Island buses.