In Conversation with Ashley Smith

Tell us a bit about your background?

I first came to the UWA Conservatorium when I was 14 as a student in the AMEB Exhibition Academy. I then studied my Undergraduate degree here, taking lessons with WASO Principal Clarinet, Allan Meyer. After further studies at the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) with David Thomas and Yale with David Shifrin, I came back to the Conservatorium to play some concerts and take a couple of workshops…. I never left.

What do you teach?

My main responsibility and love is taking care of the woodwind program. I also teach classes in pop music, music analysis and music aesthetics. Next year I’m really excited to start a new class on careers in music.

What is the best thing about teaching?

The students. It is a privilege to be part of their lives at the crucial point where they are shaping perspectives and values that will guide them for the rest of their lives. Music is such a wonderful vehicle for learning life skills and lessons.

What are the most important values that you try to impart to your students?

A strong work ethic, an understanding that change is the only constant in life, and that to be a musician is to be an athlete.

What projects are you working on at the moment?

I’m preparing John Adams’ Gnarly Buttons, a clarinet concerto, for two performances with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra at the end of this month. The piece is extraordinary and is one of the greatest technical and musical challenges I have encountered in my professional performing life.

Who’s your favourite musician?

Sara Macliver is the musician who inspires me most – extraordinary artistry, generosity, technique and musicianship.

What’s been your favourite UWA concert?

One of my favourite living composers, John Supko, travelled from the USA and visited the Conservatorium in August. He wrote a new piece for bass clarinet for me which was amazing.

What are your passions outside of teaching?

Fitness, art, literature, brutalist architecture, cooking and renovating. One of my big goals in life is to renovate a dilapidated pre-1930s house.

What’s your guilty pleasure in terms of music?

I unashamedly love running to Lady Gaga and the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. I also never turn down the chance to play The Nutcracker – the end of the first act makes me cry.

Tell us something we don’t know about you!

I play a mean alto flute. Highlights of my repertoire include the incidental alto flute solos from the The Bold and the Beautiful.

If you could give one piece of advice to someone out there with a passion for music what would it be?

Living a life through music is a life well lived.

Ashley Smith performs Gnarly Buttons in Sibelius' First Symphony
29 & 30 September 7.30pm, Perth Concert Hall

Interview conducted by UWA Conservatorium of Music.