Ashley Ertz
She/Her
Artistic Director, oboe
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Ashley Ertz is the founder and Artistic Director of 5th Wave Collective. Ashley started 5th Wave with Mika Allison in March of 2018, with a performance in a yoga studio.
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About Ashley
Ashley Ertz is the newly appointed Program Manager with the International Music Foundation, a Chicago institution dedicated to providing free high-quality classical music performance and music education experiences for people of all ages. Ertz will be managing production and programming of all concerts, getting to promote her passion of gender and race equality in classical music.
In addition to Ashley’s administrative passions, she is also a freelance oboist in the Chicago metropolitan Area. Since relocating to Chicago in 2017, Ertz has performed with numerous ensembles including Civic Orchestra of Chicago, New Philharmonic, Northwest Indiana Symphony, Orchestra Iowa, Wisconsin Philharmonic, Lakeview Orchestra, Northwest Festival Orchestra, Unsupervised Ensemble and 5th Wave Collective. 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, Santa Rosa Symphony, Symphony Napa Valley, Merced Symphony, Echo Chamber Orchestra, San Francisco Academy Orchestra, Classical Revolution, Awesome Orchestra Collective, Curious Flights Orchestra, Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, and One Found Sound Ensemble.
Ashley’s neurotic oboe tendencies also lead her to excel in music administration work. She is currently the Operations Manager for the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra Librarian for the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra, and numerous roles for the Grant Park Music Festival (GPMF). Ertz’s time with GPMF started in the summer of 2018 when she single handedly cataloged GPMF’s 80+ year history. After that she assisted running the orchestra's auditions and then in the summer of 2019 she was the Artist Liaison Assistant for GPMF. Since then she has redone the Choral Libraries organizational system and input both the Choral and Orchestral Libraries catologies into their OPAS system.
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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.