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Donal Ryan

About Me

My Jazz Story

I'm a 33 year old English Teacher living in Madrid. Originally from Dublin, Ireland I have been a resident of this city for the last six years. My interest in music started early, my mother is a piano and music theory teacher who has always taught at home and although I studied piano at an early age the discipline was too much for my tender years and it soon fell by the wayside. That said in the area where we lived there was a local Wind and Brass Band that was connected to our school and I soon found myself enrolled in evening recorder classes before moving on to the trumpet (Although the first instrument they wanted for me was the oboe, boy am I glad that that didn't happen!). My trumpet studies continued and developed and before long I was heavily involved in the youth classical music scene playing with groups such as The Rathfarnham Concert Band Society, The Rathfarnham Concert Band Jazz Ensemble, The Dublin Youth Orchestra, The Junior National Youth Orchestra of Ireland, and studying at the Royal Irish Academy under trumpet teacher Jimmy Kavanagh where I was also involved in their Junior and Senior Orchestras, their Wind and Brass Ensemble and Jazz Band. All my friendships come from this time and I feel incredibly blessed to have had the opportunity to experience both the music and warmth that these times gave me. At the age of eighteen I enrolled in a degree programme in University College Dublin to study English Literature and Philosphy and continued to play trumpet in an amateur fashion but also listen to jazz in a more interested manner. My degree took six years to complete and by the time I started working romantic l and work commitments led to me spending less and less time on trumpet until finally I took a leave of absence. Fast forward five years and I found myself in Spain with no Spanish to my name or friends to practise with when I spied an advertisement in a local English paper looking for musicians to play with a big band. I decided it was my opportunity to rectify my situation. Before long I was practising in a duo with a 64 year guitar player from Ohio and working on my improvisational skills (which are still basic and aural rather than theoretical). My interest in jazz grew and grew and at this stage I'm a regular gig goer with a thirst for more knowledge.