Clatsop Community College
1653 Jerome, Astoria OR 97103
For immediate release
Contact: Lenore Morrisson (503) 338-2473

Ryan Walsh in Concert at Next CCC Arts & Ideas Summer Concert Series


Ryan Walsh

Next to perform in Clatsop Community College’s Arts and Ideas Summer Concert Series is local musician Ryan Walsh. Walsh performs at 3 p.m. Sunday, August 27 at the Performing Arts Center in Astoria.

An aspiring local musician, Walsh was absorbed by music at a very early age. At six years old, he first took interest his family’s piano at their home in Portland. At eight, he followed his parents’ dream to escape the city and wound up in the near-anonymous coastal town of Warrenton. To this day, he remembers the tremendous effort his family made to get that 1883 Ferrand piano, already near decrepitude, through the front door of the new house.

At the age of ten, he took a year of piano lessons from Betty Jane Phillips. Although he quickly tired of the formal training and commitment it called for, those lessons were his first exposure to the extent to which an individual can carry music.

For his 15th birthday, Walsh decided on the electric guitar as his gift of choice. His first years on the guitar were largely experimental, listening to and initiating recordings of artists such as Santana and Eric Clapton. He credits much of his own improvement and understanding of the guitar, and of music in general, to later lessons taken from local guitar legend David Drury.

Upon entering the University of Oregon, his focus shifted to the classical guitar. His interest and appreciation for the music deepened when he traveled to Spain, the birthplace of the classical guitar, during his junior year.

Walsh is currently preparing for his senior year at the University, from which he plans on graduating next June, with a double major in Spanish and History. He has no doubt that he will continue to dedicate himself furthering to his musical education.

Each concert in the summer series begins at 3 p.m. at the CCC Performing Arts Center at 16th and Franklin in Astoria. Tickets are $10 and are available at Bach & Rock, 339 12th Street, located downtown next to the Hotel Elliot.

Tickets are also on sale at the Performing Arts Center Box Office one hour before the performance.

For further information regarding the summer season, please contact Lenore Morrisson, Community Cultural Education Coordinator, at lmorrisson@clatsopcc.edu or call (503) 338-2473.