Selected Performance Highlights:
- King’s Theater
- Full Circle Music Festival
- Toronto International Film Festival
- Living Arts Center (w/Frog In Hand)
- Stanfest (w/Shreem)
- Halifax Exhibition Center (w/DRUM)
Hayley Ryerson's early musical roots are in traditional fiddling, and her musical journey includes performing in jazz, folk, theatre, classical and improvisational realms. Hayley has released three self-produced albums to date and published a tunebook of her original fiddle tunes. Hayley was nominated as Educator of the Year by Nova Scotia Music Awards 2021/22 for her work as a fiddle instructor for adults and youth at Four Pillars Fiddle, the studio she opened in Sept 2020. In January of 2020, Hayley was invited to complete a composer's residency at The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity to develop Natural Elements, a collection of compositions for solo fiddle. Following this residency, Arts Nova Scotia awarded Hayley with a Creation Grant to arrange this collection for harp, drumkit, upright bass, and fiddle and aesthetically reflect her background playing jazz.
Highlights from her freelance career include performing with JUNO-nominated production DRUM! (2018), immersive dance-theatre company Frog in Hand in Creature (2017) and Off The Wall (2016), CFMA award-winner Shreem X CelticRemixing (2018), and MNS Jazz Album of the Year recipient Samantha Wilson (2022). Hayley’s fiddling has opened for Old Man Luedecke (2018), international Celtic band The Outside Track (2019), and modern Maritime trio Hauler (2022).
She produced, arranged, and performed on Kitchen Orkestra’s debut album (2017) and has recorded as a session musician with artists such as Claire Coupland, Purcell Project, Oscar Wilde, Juice, Tom Cummings, and Aijah White.
Hayley holds a Bachelor of Music Performance (Hons.) from Humber College, where she studied jazz violin, composition, and improvisation.