Enjoy ‘Winter in Wisconsin’ with Kathryn Ryan’s debut album
- Liz Curtin
- Dec 15, 2025
- 3 min read
How Kathryn Ryan stepped into the Eau Claire music scene
Story by Liz Curtin, Staff Writer • December 15, 2025
To Eau Claire native nurse and musician, Kathryn Ryan, balancing the two roles is a lot like being on the show “Severance”.
“I feel like, going to work, I’m a completely different person than I am when I come home,” Ryan said. “The way I see my true self is like this musician.”
Ryan said she is a nurse and musician who, while initially from Eau Claire, moved to Colorado recently for her partner’s job and has continued to attend open mics while there. This November, Ryan released her first album.
However, she did still record the album while in Eau Claire and held her debut album release party at The Lakely on Saturday, Nov. 22 from 6 to 9 p.m. With opening acts such as Affidavit, Emily V. and Wyatt Thompson, according to the Visit Eau Claire website.
Ryan said that many of those who recorded with her on the album were there on stage with her for the album release party performance.
“We only had a chance to practice all of the songs once, a couple of days before the album release party,” Ryan said. “But they are all such amazing musicians that it just came together.”
This album contains nine songs, which are “Thursday”, “Jesus Forgives”, “Nobody’s Fault But My Own”, “Florida Man”, “Winter in Wisconsin,” “Coffee & Cologne”, “Crazy”, “Michaelangelo” and “Stain”.
Ryan said her previous musical experience comes from playing the cello, which is featured in “Winter in Wisconsin,” “Coffee and Cologne” and “Michaelangelo.” She played cello for eight years before she began writing her own music.
Ryan said she became interested in analyzing lyrics from listening to Taylor Swift and that her songwriting evolved from her enjoyment of journaling.
She said the first song she ever began writing was “Nobody’s Fault But My Own” in 2022. Although she was writing back then, she said she didn’t attend open mics until Sept. 2024 and only had “Nobody’s Fault But My Own” and “Thursday” to perform back then.
At her second open mic, she said she met Matt Sayles, the founder of Philville Records and host of the open mic.
“I heard her singing and her songwriting, and I was like ‘Holy smokes, she’s incredible,’” Sayles said.
Sayles said he then approached her with the idea to produce a single under Philville Records, but this eventually became an album.
She produced this album under Philville Records and worked with Sayles and many other artists to create it over the course of 2024 and 2025.
For the album art, Ryan said she was trying to decide between two covers: a photo of her standing on a stump and an image of her iris, before receiving a suggestion to combine them.
The back, she said, is a quilt she made that represents parts of her life, such as having her two cats in the work.
Sayles produced it along with Ryan, but he also worked on the engineering, mixing and mastering according to the Philville Records website.
“(Ryan) had a great vision for what she wanted to do in the studio, and that was really exciting for me to work with,” Sayles said.
Ryan said she’s already working on her next album, possibly a concept album featuring the devil as a character. She is currently thinking of a 2027 release.
Curtin can be reached at curtinem5864@uwec.edu.
Comments