RYAN SAYWARD WHITTIER

I am honored to be the recipient of a 2011-2012 ASCAPLUS award.

This award “recognizes your creative contributions to American music this past year”.

I recently finished the original music for Redglass Pictures’ brand new short film about “millenials” for

Mercer (a subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies).  It was a fun and challenging project for me,

since the soundtrack required elements of indie, folk, and good old fashioned rock’n'roll, which gave me

the opportunity to feature guitars and even a vocal cameo, which I haven’t done on a soundtrack since 2005.

The AFI | Discovery Channel SilverDocs Documentary Festival has selected

Miracle On 22nd Street to be one of the short films featured and screened

at the 2011 festival.  I’m thrilled by the accolades this film is receiving, and

had a great time composing and recording the music for it.

I’m co-producing and mixing a number of the tracks on the upcoming

Restoring Poetry in Music (RPM) album, Kingdom of Fireflies, due for release in 2012

(cover art shown above). This band is extremely talented, and the music they’re creating

on the new album is an innovative step forward for alternative/progressive hip hop.

I also produced their acclaimed 2004 album Dream Awake, which included the hit “Poetry Bum”,

and their 2007 single “Life is Change” from their Pyramids In Moscow album.

Here’s a link to the short documentary film ‘Miracle on 22nd Street’,

as featured on The New York Times home page on Christmas Eve 2010:

I composed and recorded all the music in the week leading up to the debut of this true story of a

genuine Christmas mystery by Sarah Klein and Tom Mason of Redglass Pictures.

I’m honored that Vimeo creator Blake Whitman gave a shout-out to the documentary,

and to the music as well in its own right:

• Blake Whitman

  Sarah, Tom, this is a great little piece.
• The story is fascinating and the shots and pacing are great. Really nice.
• 
  Blake Whitman

  And Ryan, nice work on the music!

I composed, performed, and recorded the music for 14 short films at the National Museum of American Jewish History’s

Only In America Hall of Fame exhibit in Philadelphia.  The museum’s grand opening to the public was November 26, 2010,

and the Only In America biographical films are located on the museum’s first floor.

The permanent exhibit was conceived and produced by Local Projects, the films were directed, shot,

and edited by Redglass Pictures,  biographies include Irving Berlin, Leonard Bernstein, Louis Brandeis,

Albert Einstein, Mordecai Kaplan, Sandy Koufax, Esteé Lauder, Emma Lazarus, Isaac Leeser, Golda Meir,

Jonas Salk, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Rose Schneiderman, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Steven Spielberg,

Barbra Streisand, Henrietta Szold, and Isaac Mayer Wise.

Learn more about the National Museum of American Jewish History here: http://nmajh.org/