Ryan Guth

Having spent most of his middle and high school career in detention, Ryan Guth loves to speak to audiences about ways for choral directors to engage the seemingly un-engageable.

Ryan learned fearlessness and indomitable spirit from a young age through many years studying the martial arts while also pursuing music – especially the time in middle school when he tried to break a board with his head in front his entire ninth grade class and failed spectacularly.

He believes the best choir directors face challenges head-on (no pun intended), are solutions-oriented, and take full responsibility for all aspects of their program. Ryan's most popular and surprisingly positive article "Your Choir Sucks Because You Suck" was shared over 2,200 times in 48 hours, and has since become his manifesto, mantra, and the platform that his work is built upon.

Through his first podcast, Find Your Forte, Ryan connected thousands of weekly listeners with some of the most brilliant minds in choral music such as Helmuth Rilling, Patrick Quigley, Joseph Flummerfelt, James Bass, and 80-plus others. He recognizes the fact that we become the best when we learn from the best.

Ryan Guth recently created the Choir Ninja podcast to share solutions with middle and high school choral directors so they learn to work smarter – not harder. That’s why he focuses on sharing what works in choral programs across Choir Nation in a way that makes running a great choral program approachable, fun, and rewarding. 

When not dressing up in his ninja jammies or buffing his diploma from Westminster Choir College, Ryan is a high school choir director in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Before that, he spent a decade building a large middle school program and multi-six-figure-choral-ensemble-based-for-profit-business in central New Jersey. He is also the founder and sole member of the Hyphenation Club of America.

Ryan will be the keynote speaker at the Iowa Choral Directors Association Annual Summer Symposium next month, and a guest speaker at various other conferences and workshops throughout the year.

Ryan enjoys getting lost outdoors with his beautiful fiancé, Amanda, and pitbull-lab Sasha. He also dislikes socks and only wears them when absolutely necessary. This bio was sponsored by Gold Bond Powder.

Learn more at www.choir.ninja, where you may also subscribe to the show and find tons of free resources for choral directors.