Ryan Saladin is an adventurous, forward-thinking performing and teaching artist based in Chicago. Ryan is a versatile trombonist at home in classical, contemporary, and improvisational music idioms. He is one half of Conflux, a trombone and percussion duo project specializing in original arrangements and contemporary music for trombone and percussion. He is a substitute musician with the Milwaukee, Fox Valley, and Central Wisconsin Symphony Orchestras, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and the Green Bay Civic Symphony, actively freelances in brass chamber music settings, and frequents improvisational music spaces throughout the city of Chicago. Additionally, Ryan has participated in several notable performance workshops including the Third Coast Trombone Retreat, Metro-Detroit Jazz Workshop, DC Trombone Workshop, Atlantic Brass Quintet Summer Seminar, as well as the inaugural year of the Lawrence Chamber Music Festival. He has played in masterclasses for trombonists Joseph Alessi, Peter Ellefson, Brittany Lasch, Jeremy Moeller, Ava Ordman, Douglas Rosenthal, Nick Schwartz, Peter Steiner, Sebastian Vera, and Ko-Ichiro Yamamoto, and for composer Jacob Ter Veldhuis. Ryan is pursuing a master's degree in trombone performance at DePaul University, studying with Mark Fisher of the Chicago Lyric Opera and Charlie Vernon of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He holds bachelor's degrees in trombone performance and neuroscience from Lawrence University, where he studied with internationally celebrated crossover trombonist Tim Albright and Michael Clayville of Alarm Will Sound.