Ronald W. Follas is a native of Ohio and received his Bachelor of Music degree from Bowling Green State University. He holds the Master of Fine Arts in Music Composition degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and has lived in North Carolina since 1977. He is currently living in Charlotte where he is a middle school orchestra director and serves on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Music Task Force which oversees the beginning band and orchestra programs at the middle school level. Mr. Follas is the founder and first conductor of the Matthews Concert Band.

Mr. Follas has been principal contrabassoon with the Toledo, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Salisbury and Charleston (SC) Symphony Orchestras and has performed with the North Carolina and Charlotte Symphony Orchestras and the Charlotte Civic Orchestra. During the 1994-95 season he was principal contrabassoon with the International Symphony Orchestra in Jerusalem (Israel) where he recorded the Mahler Symphony No. 5 with Lorin Maazel and participated in a nation-wide television performance of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps conducted by Yoel Levi.

As a composer, Mr. Follas' works have been performed by groups as diverse as The United States Navy Band, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra, the Breckenridge Festival Orchestra, the Memphis State University New Music Ensemble, the Charlotte Youth Wind Ensemble and many other professional, collegiate, high school and elementary school organizations. His Concert Piece for Tuba and Band, commissioned by David Lewis, is widely performed by professional tubists and the Ballade and Allegro for Tenor Saxophone and Band, commissioned by James Houlik, is becoming one of the most often performed works by virtuoso tenor saxophonists.