Tom Ashworth joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota in 1990. As the Professor of Trombone and Euphonium, his teaching studio includes undergraduate, masters and doctoral students. He is the coordinator of brass instruments for the School of Music, and also directs the Low Brass Choir and coaches chamber ensembles. His students have enjoyed success 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 taught trombone and jazz improvisation at the University of Kansas from 1987 to 1990.
As the featured trombonist (alto, tenor and bass) with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, he has recorded CDs for Teldec, Atlantic, Decca and EMI, and has performed with the SPCO in New York, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore. In addition, Ashworth has appeared with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago-based Music of the Baroque. He has toured with the world-renowned Summit Brass and has also performed on trombone and euphonium at the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson, Wyoming and at the Brevard Music Festival in North Carolina.
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," Bill McGlaughlin's "Saint Paul Sunday Live," and performed with the SPCO on their National Public Radio broadcast of the premier of Garrison Keillor's opera, "Mr. And Mrs. Olsen." 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.
He 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. Ashworth has also hosted many guest artists and ensembles, including the American Brass Quintet, the St. Louis Brass Quintet, Vinko Globokar, Christian Lindberg, Charlie Vernon, Joseph Alessi, Raymond Premru, Michael Mulcahy, Patrick Sheridan, Gene Pokorny and Edward Kleinhammer.
Ashworth has degrees from California State University-Fresno and North Texas State University. His teachers include Larry Sutherland, Vern Kagarice, John Kitzman and Michael Mulcahy. Ashworth also studied with Swedish trombone soloist Christian Lindberg at the 1992 Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in Lubeck, Germany and again in July of 1993 in Pitea, Sweden.
Ashworth is a Bach Trombone clinician for the Selmer Company and a Willson euphonium clinician for DEG.
Last modified on July 2, 2007