Charlene A. Ryan is an author, educator, musician, artist, and scholar. She has spent most of her life behind an instrument and in front of an audience of one kind or another.
A music education professor who specializes in elementary and early childhood levels, Dr. Ryan is an Associate Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. She has been in higher education for more than 20 years, with previous positions at the Berklee College of Music and McGill University. Her research focuses on the experience and development of music performance anxiety, with a focus on children and adolescents.
With a background in performance and pedagogy, she has a keen interest in the experiences of developing musicians and has focused many of her research studies on music students, parents, and teachers. Her work can be found in journals such as Psychology of Music, International Journal of Music Education, Medical Problems of Performing Artists, Journal of Research in Music Education, International Journal of Stress Management, Musicae Scientiae, and Music and Science.
Dr. Ryan is also a visual artist specializing in oil painting. With many of her works focusing on musical themes and instruments, her music and art similarly come together in her author-illustrated music-focused books for young musicians, including the picture books, Hannabelle's Butterflies and The Milk Crate Club, and chapter books, Katherine Lost and Katherine’s Question.
Her collection of pedagogical picture books, The Sound Books, designed for interactive exploration of the elements of music, have become a staple in music classrooms. The collection includes Up and Down Sounds, Big and Small Sounds, Sections of Sound, Layers of Sound, Moving Sound, and Grouping Sound, along with the six-book compilation, Playing with Sound, designed for educators and collegiate students. Both Playing with Sound and her program-building book, Building Strong Music Programs: A Handbook for Preservice and Novice Music Teachers (recognized as an Outstanding Academic Title by the Association of College and Research Libraries), are used widely in music teacher education programs.
