Josie Van Stade Ryan

Josie van Stade Ryan is a Sydney-based soprano, vocal coach and researcher. She holds a Master of Music in Early Vocal Music and Historical Performance Practice from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and is currently undertaking a PhD at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. As a performer, Josie’s work spans early music, chamber repertoire, sacred music, contemporary music and historically informed performance.

Josie’s doctoral research, The Performance and Reception of Music by Women of the Sydney Irish Immigrant Community, 1900–1925, investigates the musical lives, careers and cultural networks of Sydney women of the early twentieth century. Drawing on archival research, newspaper criticism, concert programmes, recordings and performance-based methodologies, the project examines how these women contributed to Sydney’s musical life as performers, teachers, composers, organisers, audience members and cultural leaders. The research also explores questions of migration, gender and musical transmission within the Irish diaspora. Its inspiration was a primary source collection retained by her own family.

Part of this project focuses on the transmission of nineteenth-century vocal traditions in Australia, especially the influence of Manuel García’s pedagogical lineage. Her current practice- led research investigates the teaching of Mary Ellen Christian (1849–1941) (later Sister Mary Paul of the Cross), and seeks to reconstruct aspects of the bel canto sound world by linking her students’ recordings and critical accounts with annotated pedagogical materials.

Through the integration of scholarship and performance, Josie’s work seeks to recover neglected musical histories and illuminate the ways in which historical vocal practices have been adapted, transmitted and reimagined in Australia.