Ashley Whittle Odom

https://ashleydean.wixsite.com/violin

Violinist Ashley Whittle Odom enjoys a multi-faceted career spanning from professional orchestral performance to teaching four-year-olds with miniature violins to recording as a studio musician. Ashley performs regularly with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Ballet Orchestra, and Greenville Symphony Orchestra. She teaches Suzuki violin at North Atlanta Talent Education and private lessons in Macon, GA. For two years, she held the role of Artist in Residence at Judson Manor where she gave frequent recitals and lived within a retirement community. Ashley’s next-door neighbor was 100 years old and sharp as a tack!

Ashley graduated with her Master of Music in Violin Performance and Suzuki Pedagogy at the Cleveland Institute of Music where she studied with Dr. Olga Dubossarskaya Kaler and served as Pedagogy Assistant for Kimberly Meier-Sims. Ashley is registered to teach Suzuki Books 1-10 with the Suzuki Association of the Americas.

While in Cleveland, Ashley won positions in the Akron, Canton, and Firelands Symphonies and taught violin at the Cleveland School of the Arts and Thrive Arts Center. Other recent accomplishments include her Carnegie Hall debut with the McDuffie Center for Strings Ensemble; performing chamber music in Rome, Italy; working as a studio musician on the Orange Mountain Music label album “Concerto for Violin, Rock Band and String Orchestra;” and performing Vivaldi’s “Spring” from The Four Seasons as soloist with orchestra.

Ashley graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance from the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University where she studied with Philadelphia Orchestra Concertmaster David Kim, St. Louis Symphony Concertmaster David Halen, and former Oregon Symphony and Florida Orchestra Concertmaster Amy Schwartz Moretti. At Mercer, Ashley was a full-tuition Presidential Scholar and received the General Excellence in Music Award and Plunkett Scholarship upon graduation. Ashley enjoyed academic life at Mercer, choosing to be a Great Books student where she studied Homer through Emerson in a Socratic seminar setting.

Ashley began playing violin in the Suzuki Method at age 4 with teacher Holly Smardo. At age 15, she moved from her hometown of Springdale, Arkansas, to study with Sarah Johnson at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Ashley graduated 6th in her high school class and received a Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts Fellowship to attend the Aspen Music Festival School.

In the summertime, Ashley has performed in the Aspen Music Festival and School, Sarasota Music Festival, Rome Chamber Music Festival (Italy), Chautauqua Institution, Innsbrook Institute, and the Montecito International Music Festival, among others.

In her spare time, Ashley enjoys thrifting, playing golf, and petting her five cats.