Schubert Club Courtroom Concert: Mark Billy, baritone; Kiegan Ryan, cello; Josh Wang, piano

Hosted by composer Abbie Betinis, our popular Courtroom Concerts take place at noon most Thursdays in the Landmark Center in downtown Saint Paul. This series features accomplished musicians and composers from the Twin Cities and surrounding area, as well as occasional musical newcomers to the area. These one-hour concerts are free and open to the public.

• Mark Billy, BARITONE
• Kiegan Ryan, CELLO
• Josh Wang, PIANO

About the Artists:

Mark Billy is the leading Indigenous baritone of his generation. Mark is a 2025 winner of the McKnight Fellowship for Musicians in recognition of his sustained level of accomplishment in music as well as his commitment to artistic excellence. Mark is also a 2025 First Peoples’ Fund Native American Performing arts fellow. He is a Verdi baritone, clarinetist, and Cedar flutist of Indigenous (Choctaw tribe) ancestry from Finley, Oklahoma. Mark is at the forefront of the current musical movement which combines the sacred cultural music of the Indigenous peoples and Western concert music. He enjoys a multi-faceted career in opera, recitals with piano, concerts with orchestra, and Indigenous classical music education.

In the spring of 2026 Mark will make his debut with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra singing in Cherokee and playing the Cedar flute in a concert curated by him featuring a new concerto for Cedar flute and orchestra by Kiegan Ryan and a new solo piece composed by Choctaw composer Charles Shadle.

In February of 2025 Mark joined the musicians of Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts  to reprise the role of Inki’ in Loksi’ Shaali’ (Shell Shaker) written by Chickasaw composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate. Loksi’ Shaali’ is the first ever opera written in an Indigenous language, Chickasaw. In 2024 he was a founding creator of Opera Montana’s Wheels of Harmony Tour, bringing classical operatic repertoire and music by living Indigenous composers to reservation and public schools throughout the state of Montana. He is on faculty at the Chickasaw Summer Arts Academy. Mark is an original artist on the roster for the North American Indigenous Songbook initiative which seeks to fill the gap of art song repertoire composed by living Indigenous composers.

In April 2025 Mr. Billy joined the Oklahoma City Philharmonic in the world premiere of Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate’s American Indian Symphony.  Mark has sung as orchestral soloist with numerous professional orchestras and opera companies including the Rochester Symphony (Paukenmesse, Haydn), Bach Society of Minnesota (Mozart’s Requiem), Minnesota Orchestra, Duluth Superior Symphony (Carmina Burana), Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Opera Montana (Rigoletto), Madison Opera (Tosca), Lubbock Symphony (Carmina Burana).

Mark is the recipient of several awards and performance grants including the Music in Action Grant from the Wagner Society of the Upper Midwest, Opera Reading Project’s IDEA Fellowship, first prize in the St. Croix Valley Opera Competition and first prize in the Schubert Club Competition. Mark has been a young artist with Hawaii Opera Theatre and with Fargo Moorhead Opera. Mark was a national finalist in the Ryan Opera Center auditions at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.  Mark’s major teachers have been George Smith, Richard Anderson, Carol Vaness, Marilyn Horne, and David Etheridge (clarinet).

Mark Billy is under the management of Kathy Olsen at Encompass Arts.

Kiegan Ryan is a citizen of the Cherokee nation, a cellist and a composer of contemporary classical music. He composes chamber music, art song, opera, orchestral music and film scores. Kiegan had his compositional debut with the Oklahoma Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra in 2022 with Kanohelvsgi, written for String Orchestra. Kiegan recently had his Cherokee song cycle ᎧᏃᎮᎸᏍᎩ ᏧᏂᎶᏒᎯ (songs from where they journeyed from) performed at Lincoln Center and at the Juilliard School. Ryan recently had the honor of scoring Oklahoma City University’s mainstage production of King Lear. In the spring of 2026 Kiegan will make his soloist and compositional debut with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in a concert featuring his Cherokee song cycle Kanohelvsgi Tsunilosvhi and a newly written concerto for Cedar flute and orchestra performed by Mark Billy.

In November of 2024, Kiegan made his debut as a soloist and a composer with the Oklahoma City Philharmonic. In October of this year, he will make his mainstage debut with the Philharmonic in the Classics Series, in a concert entitled Oklahoma Stories: Celebrating our future. In this concert, he will perform his original composition Kiowa Six as the cello soloist. Kiegan is a commissioned composer for the North American Indigenous Songbook initiative and will premier an original composition in New York. Kiegan recently composed a song cycle on the writings of Cherokee Chief Wilma Mankiller that was premiered in March at the Juilliard School. Kiegan is the lead cello instructor at El Sistema Oklahoma- a non-profit that provides free music opportunities five days a week after school during the school year to students attending Oklahoma City Public Schools.

Kiegan has had performances at National Sawdust, Juilliard, Lincoln Center and Yellowstone’s All Nations Teepee Village.  He has had works performed by Opera Montana, Oklahoma City Philharmonic, 48 hour Film Festival, North American Indigenous Songbook, Schubert Club and Victory Players at MIFA Theatre.

He grew up in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, and is currently completing his graduate degree in composition and cello performance from Oklahoma City University, studying with Edward Knight and Emily Stoops.

Josh Wang is a Minneapolis-based musician specializing in choral conducting, organ, piano. He currently serves as Director of Sacred Music at the Church of Saint Mary in Lowertown, Saint Paul, where he leads the parish’s schola and polyphony choir, and curates a growing program of guest musicians—including a recent collaboration with internationally acclaimed composer Sir James MacMillan. Additionally, he serves as an assistant organist at the Cathedral of Saint Paul.

In addition to his church work, Josh serves as the choir director at Holy Spirit Academy in Monticello where he directs the all-school choir, chamber choir and teaches an elective in sacred music. Starting in the fall of 2025 he will be the founding music teacher at the Saint Augustine School in Mendota Heights, working with students in grades 6-12.

Josh holds degrees in Piano Performance from the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater (B.M.) and Bowling Green State University (M.M.), and a Master of Sacred Music in Choral Conducting from the University of Notre Dame, where he studied with Carmen Téllez and Mark Doerries. He is a member of the Church Music Association of America, American Choral Directors Association, and the American Guild of Organists.