Artist Info: Ryan Arcand

Ryan Arcand (1971 - 2018) was a Canadian street pianist.

Ryan Arcand was a member of the Alexander First Nation (Indigenous Canadians). Arcand's talent with the piano was discovered while he was living on the streets in 2014, when a stranger heard him playing a piano in Edmonton's Churchill Square. The woman, Roslyn Polard, asked if she could take a video of his performance, which she then uploaded to YouTube.

The clip drew nearly 800,000 hits in 24 hours after being posted and now sits at well over 11,000,000 views. [read more...]