Daily Dose — Musician Ryan Shane Owen Releases Album Celebrating Summer
By Ari Lord
Nelson’s Ryan Shane Owen recently released an album for the season, Summersong, a joint album with Wintersong that hit the market in 2023.
“It’s my sixth album,” says Owen of Summersong, which melds classical, traditional and folk music.
“It’s out and hopefully it goes well from here.”
Saskatchewan-raised Owen, who has lived in Nelson on and off since 2003, is proud of his latest two releases which are multi-lingual, classical/traditional/folk albums featuring songs more than a century old.
The 49-year-old Owen, who is classically trained in piano, trained in music production and engineering. He has produced all his own albums and also done the art work, and has produced albums of other musicians.
“Last winter I put out Wintersong. And this is Summersong,” says Owen, adding his first three albums are all original music and he also put out an album of modern cover songs with first album, Rhapsody for the Disco, coming out in January of 2021.
“It’s a mix of classical and folk but [the songs] are all over 100 years old.”
Owen likes old songs, but also, once a song is 100 years old, it becomes public domain.
He is in the promotion process, and making videos for his album, which has been part of his life for the past year, and hopes it goes well.
“Between the two albums I sing in 10 different languages. English, Italian, Spanish, French, German, Norwegian, Finnish, Welch, Greek and Hebrew,” says Owen.
When Owen became housebound during COVID, he took the chance to work on his music. The result is one album after another.
And now he’s looking to bring those albums out into the world.
“It would be great if it works out to perform the albums locally,” he says. “I’ve put out so much now, I’d like to perform it all.”
He thinks his latest duo of albums would appeal to a broad, public audience.
“The combination of classical and folk music with electronic sounds… it’s the kind of thing someone young and someone old might enjoy.”
Owen is working with his Toronto based publicist to give these albums a good chance out in the world.
Owen, who grew up in Saskatchewan and his family moved to BC in 2003 (Langley), first moved to Nelson partly because his brother’s family lived here. He moved to Vancouver for a few years, then back to Nelson.
The musician says there is much to appreciate about living in the Nelson area.
“The natural beauty, the healthy living, the good food, and the community.”
He spent his teenage years developing his artistic talents in Saskatchewan.
“I went to high school in Saskatoon, to a performing arts high school, where I played piano and I also did singing, dance and drama,” says Owen.
Early on, he trained in the Canadian Royal Conservatory system and went to Grade 8 of training with a private teacher in piano, and also taught himself how to play guitar.
He went to school for music production and engineering and learned about music production in Vancouver in the late 1990s.
Owen is a creative person through and through and has been in five bands and several duos.
In addition to playing the piano, guitar, singing, writing music and producing all his own music, he also does all his own artwork and music videos.
Not to mention, he does graphic design for other musician’s albums and makes costumes.
Find Owen on Instagram, X, his website, his YouTube channel.
Listen to his music on Spotify and Apple Music.
Ari Lord is Hall Printing Daily Dose reporter for The Nelson Daily.
Summersong is the sixth album for Nelson’s Ryan Shane Owen.
