Ronald Royer
Music Director & Conductor
Ronald Royer is a multi-talented Canadian musician who is active as a conductor, composer and educator.
Born in Los Angeles into a family of professional musicians, Ronald Royer began his career as a cellist, performing with such ensembles as the Utah Symphony, Pacific Symphony and Toronto Symphony, as well as working in the Motion Picture and Television Industry in Los Angeles during the 1980's.
As a conductor, Mr. Royer has conducted a variety of orchestras including the Toronto Sinfonietta, Niagara Symphony, Mississauga Symphony and Philharmonic, Sinfonia Mississauga, Scarborough Philharmonic, York Symphony, Symphony Hamilton Chamber Orchestra, Mohawk Chamber Orchestra, Brampton Symphony, McMaster Chamber Orchestra, University of Toronto Schools String Orchestra and Orchestra, Hamilton Philharmonic Summer Youth Orchestra, McMaster Summer Youth Orchestra, Glendale Youth Orchestra (Los Angeles), and Toronto Youth Wind Orchestra.
For recordings, Mr. Royer has conducted the Toronto Studio Orchestra, made up primarily of musicians from the Toronto Symphony and the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra, for the movie Gooby. He has also conducted film scores for The Happy Couple and The Dog. He will be the conductor this March for the CD recording The Hollywood Flute, featuring flutist Louise DiTullio with Sinfonia Toronto performing music from Hook (John Williams), Rudy (Jerry Goldsmith), Charlotte's Web (Danny Elfman), and Dances with Wolves (John Barry), as well as music by David Rose and Ronald Royer.Ronald Royer is a prominent Canadian composer with numerous performances, commissions and commercial recordings. His compositions have been performed throughout Canada, Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Mexico and the United States by leading soloists, ensembles and over forty orchestras.
Mr. Royer began serious studies in composition in the 1990's, receiving a Master's Degree in Composition from the University of Toronto in 1997. In June 2004, he became the Composer-in-Residence for the Orchestras Mississauga supported by a residency grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. Mr. Royer is an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre and works as an Instructor of Music for the University of Toronto Schools.
Along with co-composer Kevin Lau, Mr. Royer recently finished composing his first feature film score for the Canadian children's movie Gooby, starring Robbie Coltrane and Eugene Levy. Gooby premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in France on May 14, 2008 and will hit theatres in North America in the spring. Other commissions include grants by the Canada Council for the Arts to compose Sinfonia Concertante for Piano Trio and Orchestra (the Gryphon Trio and the Mississauga Symphony), Mirage for Orchestra (Mississauga Symphony) and Water and Light, Fireworks at the Falls for Orchestra (Niagara Symphony). As well, Mr. Royer received a Laidlaw Foundation grant to compose Travels with Mozart for Chamber Orchestra. This composition was jointly commissioned by five orchestras, Jyvaskyla Sinfonia (Finland), Toronto Sinfonietta (Canada), International Symphony (Canada/USA), Peterborough Symphony (Canada), and Scarborough Philharmonic (Canada), to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Mozart.
Recordings include the recently internationally released The Nightingale's Rhapsody with Clarinetist Jerome Summers and The Thirteen Strings of Ottawa by Cambria Master Recordings (California) and the Storyteller's Bag by the Children's Group as well as recordings by the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic (Czech Republic), the Toronto Sinfonietta, and cellist Simon Fryer with pianist Lydia Wong.