Ryan Van
Hailing originally from Rochester, N.Y., Ryan Van headed west to Flagstaff, Ariz. in the early 1990s. It wasn’t until a move to the Pacific Northwest in the late 1990s that Van began his artistic journey when living in a 100-year-old apartment building in Tacoma, Wash., where the residents were mostly musicians, poets and artists.

It was in Tacoma that the roots of Van’s music were born. In a short period of time, Van became one of the most prolific musicians and songwriters in the Northwest.

It was during this time that Van began the task of juggling his music lifestyle with his professional life as a career newspaper journalist. From the high-pace of the newsroom during the daytime hours straight to the underground coffee shops and stages of downtown Tacoma at night, Van began to showcase his early songs to an audience of craving artists fed up with the same-old same-old.

In late 2001, Van returned to Arizona, this time to Sedona, where he began to finish a project started in the basement of a Tacoma house. The collective work would later become Van’s 2004 debut independent release, “Monkey.” Van and a small group of other Sedona artists were persistent in their pursuit of venues in which to play original music in a town of night clubs that catered to cover bands. It wasn’t long until local original talent was exhumed from basement coffee shops into the prime time slots of Friday and Saturday nightclub shows. Van and others began defining the Sedona sound.

It was 2005 when Van was discovered by Grammy Award-winning multi-platinum recording star Micki Free, who later hand selected Van to be a regular opening act for him. In 2006, Van hung up his journalism career to take his sound and his songs on the road, where audiences have welcomed him with a vast enthusiasm for his body of work. For more on Ryan Van, visit www.ryanvanband.com.

Location: Sedona, Ariz.

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