American baritone Andrew Ryker is an award-winning voice teacher, musician, and nationally recognized stage director. Recent voice and opera students are performing on stages all around the world and have been accepted into prestigious young artist programs at Santa Fe Opera, Sarasota, Des Moines Metro, Wolf Trap, Houston Grand, Florida Grand, Utah Festival Opera, Opera Theatre St. Louis, the Spoleto Festival, and more. Ryker has had six award winners in Metropolitan Opera competitions, over 50 winners at NATS, and recent Musical Theatre alumni are performing on Broadway national tours (Anastasia, Come from Away, Hairspray), off-Broadway (The Office, Stranger Sings), on cruise ships (Beetlejuice, Cats, Jersey Boys, Kinky Boots) at Disney (Aladdin, Beauty & the Beast, Frozen), and are featured on several original cast albums.

Ryker has a diverse background in opera and musical theatre. He has been heard with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops, College Light Opera Company, La Musica Lirica, Trinity Church, and more. Recent highlights include the lead role in Parade with StageWest, Messiah soloist at the Church of the Good Shepherd, a solo cabaret at Noce jazz club, and the title role in I am Harvey Milk with The Des Moines Gay Men’s Chorus. Oratorio credits include Bach's Johannes Passion, Durufle’s Requiem, Faure’s Requiem, and Handel’s Messiah while operatic roles have included Papageno, the Count, Silvio, Belcore, Don Alfonso, Marco, John Brooke, St. Brioche, Strephon, and Jenik in the US premiere of Dvorak's Kral a Uhlir.

Ryker has directed more than 40 productions nationally and abroad. He was Director of Opera at both Ohio University and Capital University and his work has been seen at Opéra Louisiane, Opera North, FIO Italia, Boston Opera Collaborative, Intermezzo, Opera New Jersey, MetroWest Opera, and more. He spent seven years at Des Moines Metro Opera, directing for their nationally recognized apprentice artist program and award-winning educational outreach tours. Prior to his time in Des Moines, Andrew was on the directing staff at the New England Conservatory and served as the first Artistic Director of Boston Opera Collaborative. Awards have included an Elliot Norton Award, a Cloris Award, a Cincinnati SongSlam Award, a Goldowsky Directing Fellowship, and his production of Britten's Curlew River was named Boston's "Best Staged Opera of the Year" by The Boston Phoenix.

Andrew has sung in master classes with Warren Jones, Pierre Vallet, Vinson Cole, and Alan Held and is an alumnus of Millikin University, where he studied with Kathryn Hartgrove. He received his master's in Vocal Performance from the New England Conservatory where he graduated with Academic Honors and was a student of William Cotten and John Moriarty.