Ryan Keith Dudenbostel is a conductor, clarinetist, and arranger based in Los Angeles. He currently serves as the Music Director of the Santa Monica Youth Orchestra, an organization devoted to providing high-level, tuition-free musical experiences to young musicians from across the Santa Monica community. Recent engagements include a full production of Mozart's Don Giovanni with OperaUCLA; a concert presentation of Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera at Zipper Hall; the world-premiere workshop of Roger Bourland's new opera The Dove and the Nightingale; performances with the UCLA orchestras, opera studio, and Contempo Flux Ensemble; a production of Pagliacci with the Pocket Opera of New York; and concerts with the Marrowstone Music Festival, where he serves as a member of the conducting faculty. In December 2013, he was among fewer than a dozen Americans invited to participate in the 11th Cadaqués Orchestra International Conducting Competition in Barcelona. He is also a frequent guest speaker, and has presented pre-concert lectures at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica.

In November 2013, Dudenbostel's new performing edition of Henry Purcell's opera The Indian Queen, created in collaboration with director Peter Sellars, was given its premiere in Madrid, Spain, in a joint production by the Perm State Opera and the Teatro Real. Prior to his time in Los Angeles, he served for three seasons as a rehearsal and cover conductor at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, preparing the student orchestras for such eminent conductors as Philippe Entremont, Yoav Talmi, Kent Tritle, H. Robert Reynolds, and Kenneth Kiesler.

Also a clarinetist, Dudenbostel recently appeared in a series of critically-acclaimed New York performances of Ricky Ian Gordon’s theatrical song-cycle Orpheus and Euridice, alongside his wife, soprano Heather Dudenbostel. For two years, he regularly played for the Tony-Award-winning revival of South Pacific at Lincoln Center. He has also performed in the orchestras of the Civic Opera of Kansas City and Kansas City Puccini Festival.

Ryan Dudenbostel has collaborated with vocalist John Duykers, violinist Mark O’Connor, violist David Aaron Carpenter, pianist Gloria Cheng, director Peter Sellars, and the legendary actor James Earl Jones, among others. He has also appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Currently completing DMA studies in conducting at UCLA, he is a graduate of the University of Missouri—Kansas City Conservatory and Western Washington University. He has studied conducting with Neal Stulberg, Robert Olson, David Wallace, Kenneth Kiesler, Gustav Meier, and Rossen Milanov.