Ashley Wass

Described as an ‘endlessly fascinating artist’, Ashley Wass’s musical career is one of unusual creativity and variety. Alongside his work as soloist and chamber musician, he is co-founder of Mash Productions, was Artistic Director of the Lincolnshire International Chamber Music Festival for eleven years, Deputy Head of Keyboard Studies at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, and is now Director of Music at the Yehudi Menuhin School. The diverse list of people and organisations with whom he has collaborated include film festivals, art galleries and animators, children’s television presenters and stars of the stage and screen, illustrators, literary festivals and renowned authors, and mime artists and comedians.
A long-standing collaboration with Matthew Trusler has been particularly rewarding and in 2016 they co-founded Mash Productions, a production company that is focused on realising innovative and ambitious projects. Together they have commissioned over a dozen new works from some of the world’s leading composers, produced a series of musical plays, worked with illustrators and animators to create a number of short films set to music, collaborated with Carl Davis and the Chaplin Foundation on a show about the life and music of Charlie Chaplin, and curated a number of mini-festivals for leading arts organisations around the UK. Their acclaimed series for children - Musical Myths - which combines their own specially written scripts with great pieces of classical music has been toured and performed to thousands of children by orchestras around the UK and Europe, including the Bournemouth Symphony, Opera North, Southbank Sinfonia and the Lahti and Latvian Symphony orchestras.

Spoken language: English