William Ryan Fritch

Composer, Multi-Instrumentalist, Producer

William Ryan Fritch is a composer, multi instrumentalist and producer who has created music for numerous award-winning films, television shows, videos, art installations, dance and theatre performances and national advertisement campaigns. In addition to his multi-media work, he maintains a prolific recording career releasing records under his own name and his alias Vieo Abiungo. His vibrant, organic sound is a product of his unique skills as an instrumentalist and recordist that allow him to utilize his vast and varied arsenal of acoustic instrumentation to fully realize his compositions as a solo endeavor.    

William Ryan Fritch is an award winning composer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer living in Petaluma, California. Since 2008, Fritch has scored and contributed original music to over a hundred documentary and narrative films, collaborating with some of this generation’s most respected independent Filmmakers and documentarians.

Some notable projects include the 2024 Emmy nominated Paramount + documentary “AS we Speak,” 2023 Emmy Winning “ Outlaw Ocean, ” 2021 Emmy-winning documentary “The Rescue List,” the 2020 multiple Emmy-nominated “Into the Canyon” for Disney+, the 2021 Independent Spirit-nominated narrative film "Bull," the 2020 Peabody-winning documentary “A Different Kind of Force,” the 2016 Academy Award-nominated "4.1 Miles," and The 2014 Independent Spirit Award winning “The Waiting Room.”

 As a recording artist and songwriter he has released more than 30 albums of his unique blend of folk, contemporary classical, and experimental music under his own name and using the moniker Vieo Abiungo. As Pop Matters said of one his recent albums, “Its beauty will leave you fustigated, with raw emotion resonating from every sonic vibration in his expansive timbral arsenal…”

 Growing up in a rural Florida with few musicians to play with, Fritch learned how to compose and play music at an early age through incessantly recording and overdubbing himself on his father's old radio equipment and 4 track tape machine . Decades later, after studying under and playing with some of the most respected luminaries in  Contemporary music ( Joan Jeanrenaud, Roscoe Mitchell, Henry Grimes, Fred Frith)  he's remained uniquely fluent in analog recording methods and doggedly self-reliant as an instrumentalist: having refining his craft and expanded his palette to include proficiency with hundreds of traditional orchestral, non-western and homemade instruments to the point where he can create unique, organic orchestrations for most any sound world (real or imagined), as a solo endeavor. Whether it be a Cello, Pipe Organ, Bassoon, or a piece of scrap metal, William Ryan Fritch treats each and every thing he creates sound with as if it is his primary instrument. 

His compositions and scores have been lauded as "beautiful and evocative” (The Hollywood Reporter) and “piquant, lively, and imaginative” (Variety) and have made multiple music journalists' year-end lists of best original soundtracks.