About Me

Ashley Ertz is an oboist, educator and arts administrator in the Chicago metropolitan area. Ertz is Principal Oboe with the Jackson Symphony Orchestra and English Horn/Second Oboe with the Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra. She is also the Artistic Director/Founder of 5th Wave Collective and Program Manager with Classical Music Chicago.

In March of 2018 Ashley saw a lack of performance space for womxn composers and thus started 5th Wave Collective, a Chicago based ensemble dedicated to the performance and promotion of music by womxn composers. They are now in their fifth season with Ertz as Artistic Director, having had over 150 musicians perform with them and presenting over 75 womxn composers. 

Since relocating to Chicago in 2017, Ertz has performed with numerous ensembles including the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Chicago, Music of the Baroque, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Quad City Symphony Orchestra, New Philharmonic, Orchestra Iowa, Southwest Michigan Symphony Orchestra and more. While living in San Francisco to earn her first two degrees, Ashley performed with the San Francisco Symphony, Green Music Center’s ChamberFest with Jeffrey Kahane and Jennifer Koh, Santa Rosa Symphony,  Symphony Napa Valley, Merced Symphony, and more. Ertz is on the substitute lists for the New World Symphony and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. 

A skilled arranger, Ertz has been making arrangements of classical and pop music for the Civic Orchestra of Chicago Fellows as well as for her own projects with 5th Wave Collective. As a budding composer, Ertz was commissioned by the Illinois Music Educators Association as part of their Audition Etude Commissioning Project. 

Ashley’s neurotic oboe tendencies also lead her to excel in music administration work. She previously served as the Operations Manager for the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra Librarian for the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra, and numerous roles for the Grant Park Music Festival.

Ashley is passionate about educating the next generation of musicians, sharing the joys and discipline that music provides. She was the Oboe Techniques Instructor at the Chicago High School for the Arts and also taught the Oboe Methods class for Music Education students in 2019 at the DePaul University School of Music. While living in San Francisco she held a private studio of 15+ students and taught preschool music classes and youth concerts as an Artist in Residence with the Symphony Napa Valley.

Ertz earned her Performance Certificate from DePaul University studying with Alex Klein, her Masters degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, studying with San Francisco Symphony’s solo English Hornist Russ DeLuna, and her Bachelor’s degree from San Francisco State University, studying with San Francisco Ballet’s Principal oboist, Laura Griffiths. 

While not tirelessly making reeds, Ashley enjoys reading books and snuggling with her kitty cat, Stella.