Raised throughout the midwest and living in Chicago, Ryan Burns plays music colored with the simple values of his surroundings. After spending his childhood singing and playing songs, it wasn't until he was an adult that he realized his calling to make music. Now Ryan plays genre-bending Americana songs on his banjo and guitar, winning over audiences with his combination of thoughtful songwriting and cathartic vocals. While mainly drawing on American folk music, Ryan’s influences also dig into his background as an ethnomusicology major, pulling in sounds from Mande drumming, spacey rock, and Irish traditional music.

In 2019 at the release of his debut EP, The Institute, Ryan played with a new band to fill out his sound and in 2020 that band has morphed into Ryan Burns and the Vocal Ghosts. The name was inspired by a line in the preface of Beloved by Toni Morrison, “...the house was filled with extremely vocal ghosts.” It seemed to immediately click with the idea of this group of players. Not only do they all bring their own voices to the music, but it’s also a loose collection of musicians shifting and changing. And as the players change the songs change with it.

Ryan is also a member of the Chicago band Distant Brothers and has shared a stage with regional and national acts like The Last Bison, The Lighthouse and the Whaler, and Them Coulee Boys. He’s performed at regional festivals including Midsommarfest, Chillfest, and Groovewalk and he is currently writing material for his next project and touring at venues around the Midwest. The band’s first full album, Static Year, was released in November of 2020. When he’s not on the road he performs regularly throughout Chicago at venues like The Cubby Bear and Montrose Saloon, and The Tonic Room.