The Victoria Conservatory of Music welcomes Ry Moran as special guest on Faculty for the 2023-2024 academic year.
Since 2010, Ry Moran is one of Canada’s central figures in Truth and Reconciliation. As Director of Statement Gathering and the National Research Centre for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he facilitated the gathering of nearly 7,000 video/audio-recorded statements of former residential school students and millions of pages archival records.
Ry then served as the founding Director of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR). Ry guided the creation of the NCTR from its inception contributing to major national initiatives such as the creation of the National Student Memorial Register, designation of multiple residential schools as national historical sites, development and launch of the Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada, and a major educational broadcast which reached over three million Canadians. Ry contributed directly to the launch of Gord Downie’s Secret Path in addition to executive producing the New Constellations Tour.
Ry is now Canada’s inaugural Associate University Librarian – Reconciliation at the University of Victoria, a first of its kind in the country.
Remarkably, all this work rests on a foundation of music with Ry’s love of music production and recording that were deployed in the recording of residential school survivors from coast to coast to coast. Despite a pause in public performances during his time with the TRC and NCTR, music remained a constant, not only as a place of emotional healing and release, but of active composition and recording. Ry’s music is now ready to re-emerge, and past success indicates the music will be powerful.
A dynamic multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, composer and producer, Ry’s 2008 debut album, Groundwater, garnered significant recognition including a APTN First Tracks music video production award and multiple nominations including a Canadian Folk Music Award and a Western Canadian Music Award. His original music for two seasons of the children’s television program Tiga Talk earned him the award of Best Original Score at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards in 2008.
Presently, Ry’s original compositions can be heard on his podcast entitled Taapwaywin which is quickly establishing itself with tens of thousands of listeners per episode. He is also working alongside classical music greats the Gryphon Trio, Marion Newman and Andrew Balfour on a forthcoming production entitled Echos: Memories of the World.
Ry’s passion and talents for helping inspire audiences to embrace Truth and Reconciliation are clear. It is time now to see this emerge through his music.
Ry is a distinguished alumni of the University of Victoria and was awarded a Meritorious Service Cross by the Governor General. Ry is a proud member of the Red River Métis
Links:We Are Canada – Special Feature (about Ry)