Ryan Williamson was appointed Principal Horn of the Rockford Symphony Orchestra in September 2025. Ryan served as a Regular Member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago from 2022-2024, and has performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra, New York City Ballet Orchestra, and Sarasota Orchestra. During the 2024-25 season, he was Acting Second Horn of the Phoenix Symphony.

A consummate chamber musician, Ryan was a participant at the Marlboro Music Festival for three summer seasons (2022, 2024, 2025), and recently performed as part of the esteemed Chamber Music at McKnight series in Stillwater, OK alongside artistic director and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott. During his four years at The Juilliard School, Ryan was a member of brass quintet Brass22, who attended the ABQ@Aspen Seminar in 2021 as a fellowship ensemble, working side-by-side with their mentors in the American Brass Quintet. In October 2021, Ryan also gave the world premiere performance of Dana Dimitri Richardson’s Sonata for Horn and Piano with pianist Craig Ketter.

In addition to the modern horn, Ryan has performed on both classical and baroque historical horns, having taken secondary lessons on natural horn with Todd Williams at The Juilliard School. Ryan has worked extensively with Juilliard’s historical performance ensemble, Juilliard415, performing symphonies of CPE Bach with the ensemble in Cambridge, MA and touring Germany alongside Yale Schola Cantorum with Joseph Haydn’s Creation Mass (Schöpfungsmesse). 

Ryan completed his undergraduate studies at The Juilliard School and received a Master’s degree from Northwestern University. His major teachers include Gail Williams, Jonathan Boen, Julie Landsman, and Daniel Gingrich. He lives in Chicago, IL.