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 centres around young musicians and their teachers. She has worked with children of all ages, from infants to highschoolers, as well as university and college students. Currently an Associate Professor at Ryerson University, she has been a faculty member at the Berklee College of Music and McGill University. In addition to her university teaching, Dr. Ryan developed two highly successful community music programs for children while at McGill and Berklee. Her research on the performance experiences of children and adolescents has been published widely in academic journals. Dr. Ryan is the editor of the Canadian Music Educator and serves on the editorial boards for the International Journal of Music Education and Frontiers in Psychology - Performance Science.