简介

Professor Ashworth teaches alto, tenor and bass trombone to undergraduate, masters and doctoral students. He also directs the UM Trombone Choir, leads the UM Jazz 'Bones, coaches chamber ensembles and teaches a graduate course in Studio Administration and Resources. Many of his former students are enjoying successful careers as public school and university educators, orchestral and military ensemble musicians and as freelance performers and teachers. Ashworth is a former member of the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra and previously taught trombone and jazz improvisation at the University of Kansas. As the featured trombonist (alto, tenor and bass) with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Ashworth recorded CDs for Teldec, Atlantic, Decca and EMI, and performed with the SPCO in New York, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore. In addition, he has appeared with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago-based Music of the Baroque. Ashworth has toured with the world-renowned Summit Brass and has performed on trombone and/or euphonium at the Summit Brass Institute, the Grand Teton Music Festival, the Brevard Music Festival, the Wintergreen Music Festival and the Ojai Music Festival. In addition to numerous SPCO CDs, Ashworth can be heard on recordings by the Minnesota Orchestra, the Graham Ashton Brass Ensemble, the Summit Hill Brass, the Lou Fischer Big Band and Symphonia, a professional tuba-euphonium ensemble. He recorded a collection of contest solo pieces for trombone on Summit Records. Ashworth can also be heard playing lead and solo trombone on several recordings with the North Texas State University One O’Clock Lab Band. From July 1994 to August 1995 Ashworth was the Lecturer in Trombone at the Canberra (Australia) School of Music. He performed with the orchestras of Sydney, Tasmania, and Canberra and joined the Sydney Symphony Orchestra for their 1995 European tour. As a freelance commercial musician, Ashworth has performed with numerous artists, including Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr., Rosemary Clooney, The Temptations, Doc Severinsen, Bobby McFerrin and Al Jarreau. He has recorded music for radio and TV jingles, CDs and movies, and has extensive experience playing Broadway shows. Ashworth has appeared on Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion," and Bill McGlaughlin's "Saint Paul Sunday Live." He has also performed with the SPCO on their NPR broadcast of the premier of Garrison Keillor's opera, "Mr. And Mrs. Olsen" and recorded a DVD with the SPCO and Garrison Keillor. Ashworth has been on the faculty of numerous international brass conferences, and has appeared as a clinician, soloist and adjudicator throughout the USA, and in Australia and Europe. Ashworth frequently organizes brass symposia at the University of Minnesota, and served as the Host of the 1994 International Trombone Workshop and the 1998 International Tuba-Euphonium Workshop. He has also hosted many guest artists and ensembles, including the American Brass Quintet, the St. Louis Brass Quintet, Dallas Brass, Vinko Globokar, Christian Lindberg, Charlie Vernon, Joseph Alessi, Raymond Premru, Michael Mulcahy, Patrick Sheridan, Gene Pokorny, Edward Kleinhammer, Oysten Baadsvik and Jaques Mauger. Ashworth has degrees from California State University-Fresno and North Texas State University. His teachers include Larry Sutherland, Wilbur Sudmeier, Vern Kagarice, John Kitzman and Michael Mulcahy. Ashworth also studied with Swedish trombone soloist Christian Lindberg at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in Lubeck, Germany and in Pitea, Sweden. Ashworth performs on Bach trombones, including a Mount Vernon 42B and a Mount Vernon 8LT.