About the Author

Charlene A. Ryan is a musician, painter, writer, and mom. She has spent most of her life behind an instrument and in front of an audience of one kind or another. Dr. Ryan, as she is known by many, is also a professor of music education whose career centers around young musicians and their teachers. Currently an Associate Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University), Charlene has been in higher education for 20 years, with previous positions at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and McGill University in Montreal. Before this, she was a school music teacher who worked with children of all ages, from infants to highschoolers. While teaching at McGill and Berklee, she continued to engage with children through various community outreach programs in Montreal and Boston, such as the Little Musicians/Very Little Musicians program (Montreal) and KidsJam/BabyJam series (Boston). Research into the performance experiences and anxieties of children and adolescents has played a central role in her academic life. Charlene's work has been published widely in academic journals such as Psychology of Music, Journal of Research in Music Education, International Journal of Stress Management, and International Journal of Music Education, and she serves on editorial boards for the International Journal of Music Education and Frontiers in Psychology-Performance Science. Charlene's research, teaching, and performing experiences combined to provide the impetus for her children's books, including The Sound Books series, The Milk Crate Club series, and her middle-grades chapter book, Katherine Lost.