Ryan McMaken, Artistic Director for the Savannah Music Festival, has been with the organization for thirteen festival seasons. McMaken oversees programming, marketing and production for SMF, and is co-creator and producer of the weekly public radio show Savannah Music Festival LIVE (now in its eleventh season on GPB Radio). With a career focused on the promotion of tradition-based music, he started in publicity at Rounder Records, working on tour press and select release campaigns for a variety of projects including John Hartford, the Alan Lomax Collection, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Boozoo Chavis, Burning Spear, and Heartbeat Records’ Studio One/Treasure Isle reissues. From 2002-2006, he was Program Director for the Center for Cultural Exchange in Portland, Maine, on whose board he later served. McMaken also co-hosted and produced a weekly public radio series on WMPG in Portland. His freelance work in New England included publicity, artist and project management for clients such as the Maine Humanities Council, Portland Symphony Orchestra, Bull Moose Music and Humble Abode Music. McMaken grew up in Atlanta and has a B.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Georgia. He is a squareneck dobro and fiddle player, having performed and recorded with a variety of artists and licensed music for television.