BIO / UPCOMING & RECENT PERFORMANCES / PRESS / MORE
Biography
“At that moment in my life I began to think and to write music. Oh yes.
Wretched idea! . . . very wretched idea!”
Ashi Day is a composer and educator whose vocally-driven music explores unconventional intersections between music and theater; using the voice as a compositional tool; strategic use of humor and absurdity; and considering the experience of the performer as much as the audience. She frequently writes pieces designed to expand the canon in ways that allow performers to play against stereotypes and that bring a theatrical lens to instrumental performance. Common themes include who is able to move freely through the world, pressures that influence people to act for or against their stated values, and interconnectedness and sustainability. She also writes a lot of songs about animals.
In addition to writing choral music and art song, Ashi writes chamber operas that explore, in some way, who gets to move freely through the world and who does not. Usually working as her own librettist, her operas are praised for their catchy melodies and idiomatic vocal writing. Waking the Witch, a one-act immersive opera for solo countertenor (or mezzo-soprano) and Pierrot ensemble, sees the audience as an accused witch being interrogated by a 16th-Century witchfinder, and uses a libretto drawn from the words of historical witch hunters as well as modern-day rhetoric that is eerily similar. The Fishwife, an ensemble-driven comic operetta commissioned by Maryland Opera Studio, reimagines of the Grimm fairytale “The Fisherman and His Wife,” as playful exploration of wanting: greed, ambition, satisfaction, and more (and includes fake Baroque arias and sea shanties). Her micro-operas include For Whom the Dog Tolls, in which a solo soprano plays a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, a rare hunting breed that can lure ducks to their demise; The Green Child, for soprano and clarinet (the clarinetist playing the titular character, with optional staging included), based on the legend of the green children of Woolpit in which two girls save each other from dangers physical and existential; and Fae-Feral Child (with librettist Cilff Hoitt-Lange), commissioned by No Divide KC as part of their Come as You Are: Vulnerability in the Concert Space), in which a bullied child finds new beginnings through an encounter with the faefolk.
Ashi’s works have been performed by Lyric Opera of Kansas City with No Divide KC; Renegade Opera; Opera Ithaca; Hartford Opera Theater; Fresh Squeezed Opera Company; KC VITAS; Juventas New Music Ensemble; Calliope’s Call; Cappella Clausura; Phoenix Chamber Choir; A Notion, A Scream; StageFree; Metropolitan Master Chorale of Los Angeles, Artifice, Ensemble Lyrae, Connecticut Yankee Chorale, and as well as a by number of university and church choirs, singers in recital, and more. She has been commissioned by ensembles and organizations including The Thirteen, Maryland Opera Studio, Whistling Hens, Little City Concerts, Cantate Chamber Singers, the Boston Cecilia, PERI Trio, and more. She has also been a festival composer at Choral Arts Initiative’s PREMIERE|Project Festival, Denison TUTTI, New Music on the Bayou, NEO Voice Festival, Women Composers Festival of Hartford, Music by Women, University of North Georgia’s ROCC, District New Music Coalition’s New Music DC, Opera from Scratch, and more. In devised theater, she collaborated with artists of various disciplines to co-create Narrative the Build We for Cultural DC’s Source Festival and Being Moss as part of I Thought the Earth Remembered Me with banished? productions for the Capital Fringe Festival. Her music can be heard on Whistling Hens’ album, Reacting to the Landscape, and KC VITAS’ When We Arrive at Home (Neuma Records).
Ashi has been named a DC Arts and Humanities Fellow for multiple years alongside artists of all mediums “whose artistic excellence significantly contributes to the District of Columbia as a world class cultural capital.” She was a 2025 Come As You Are fellow with No Divide KC and Lyric Opera of Kansas City, in which she was commissioned to create a new micro-opera for youth and family audiences. She was a 2022 Opera America Discovery Grant for Women Composers awardee for Waking the Witch. Ashi has also won prizes in VocalArts DC and Sparks and Wiry Cries’ SongSLAM DC, the Sewanee Church Conference’s FYFE Choral Composition Competition, and the New York Treble Singers Composition Competition.
Ashi earned a B.M. and M.M. in Composition respectively from Bucknell University and Westminster Choir College. Composition teachers include William Duckworth, Jackson Hill, Stefan Young, and Joel Phillips. As an educator, Ashi spent five years teaching elementary music and language arts in south Florida, during which time she also studied improv theater and classical voice. She then earned an Ed.M. in Arts in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she was named an Urban Scholars Fellow for her work in arts education. For over a decade she worked in as an arts administrator managing education programs at the Kennedy Center and the Washington National Opera that created opportunities for people of all ages to experience, explore, learn through, and train in music and opera. As a soprano, she is a professional church musician and an excellent partner for singing rounds on car trips. She resides in Washington, DC, with her husband and her dog/muse, Oliver.
Pronunciation
Upcoming/Recent Performances
The Thirteen: US In Our Time
To the Bay (premiere)
April 30, 2027 Trinity Methodist Church, Alexandria, VA
May 1, 2027, St. Mark’s Capitol Hill, Washington, DC
May 2, 2027, Westmoreland UCC, Bethesda, MD
Little City Concerts and Balance Campaign
The Wolf at the Door (premiere)
April 3, 2027, The Falls Church Episcopal, Falls Church, VA
TellTale Opera Theatre
The Gorgon and the Oracle (premiere)
TBD (Spring, 2027, Baltimore, MD)
Juventas New Music Ensemble: Many Voices, One Song: A social justice concert and community sing
Open Your Mouth
October 24, 2026, Medford Public Library, Medford, MA
Dawn Whitmore: Mirrored Play (premiere)
September 19, 2026, Crofton Park, Gambrills, MD
The Boston Cecilia: A New Song
Evolution (premiere)
May 16, 2026, All Saints Parish, Brookline, MA
Otterbein Opera Theatre
The Fishwife
April 18 & 19, Otterbein University, Westerville, OH
Vocal Arts DC and Sparks & Wiry Cries presents SongSLAM DC
Sea Burial (premiere)
April 9, 2026, Live! at 10th and G, Washington, DC
Denison TUTTI Festival: Shifting Landscapes: Orchestra & Choir
To help the Crampe
March 26, 2026, Eisner Center for the Performing Arts, Denison, OH
Phoenix Chamber Choir with Phoenix Choral Experience: Humanity
To help the Crampe
February 28, 2026, St Andrew’s Wesley United Church, Vancouver, BC
Opera Ithaca
Waking the Witch
November 12-16, 2025, Kitchen Theatre, Ithaca, NY
The Arlington Chorale: Reach
Sleep Now, My Love (premiere)
November 8, 2025, Westover Baptist Church, Arlington, VA
Commissioned by Classical Movements as part of the Eric Daniel Helms New Music Program
Renegade Opera
Waking the Witch
September 5-7, 2025, Chapel Theater, Milwaukie, OR
Washington National Opera Institute 2025 Showcase
Séance (premiere)
August 8 & 9, 2025, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC
Lyric Opera of Kansas City and No Divide KC: Come As You Are: Vulnerability in the Concert Hall
Fae-Feral Child (premiere)
May 18, 2025, Zhou B Art Center, Kansas City, MO
Maryland Opera Studio New Works Reading
The Fishwife (premiere)
February 14, & April 26, 2025, The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, College Park, MD
Previous Performances
Press
EVOLUTION
Boston Classical Review: Boston Cecilia closes 150th season with meaningful works from the past and present
WAKING THE WITCH
WSKG Public Radio: Opera Ithaca presents a new opera (interview)
Ithaca Times Waking the Witch: On Why We Believe the Unbelievable
Oregon ArtsWatch: Review: Confess!: Renegade Opera’s “hot as hell” production of “Waking the Witch”
“...the short work’s mostly whimsical tone charmed and was winningly realized by the Cecilia.”
“...an opera both engaging and timeless, confronting an issue that will always be relevant.””
“Hot as hell... The score was engaging, catchy, and very accessible... [an] intense and brilliant performance by Renegade Opera.”
Oregon ArtsWatch: You are the witches: The audience as collective accused in Renegade Opera’s staging of Ashi Day’s “Waking the Witch”
OperaWire: Q&A: Ashi Day on "‘Waking the Witch’ & Contemporary Opera
Bucknell Magazine: Making Music Together: Interview with Ashi Day & Lee Cromwell
Opera America Press Release: 2022 Opera Grants for Women Composers: Discovery Grants
“”Luminous” - Amplified
“A radiant opening that pulses with resilience and warmth.” - Neuma Records
“…Intense layers of gorgeous vocals…lush” - RAGMAG”
FOR WHOM THE DOG TOLLS
Oregon ArtsWatch: A kind of shelter: Renegade Opera’s ‘American Patriots’ and ‘She Loves You Back’
“Ashi Day’s For Whom the Dog Tolls opened the show in a wild, humorous manner. Vocalist Emily Evelyn Way was really having fun with the choreography, running around barefoot with evocative facial expressions and hand puppetry. The piece places the vocalist into the emotions and behaviors of a dog (a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever in particular): their extremities of joy and sadness, with wide eyes and raised ears, turning into confusion at humanity’s more esoteric forms of communication. But despite this joy, the dog remains subservient to its human companion, begging for attention and admiration.”
THURSDAY
THE GREEN CHILD
[REacTING TO THE LANDSCAPE Album | Whistling Hens]
International Association of Women in Music Journal vol. 29, no. 2
“The clarinet’s thematic material makes it clear that its character is hopelessly trying to convince the soprano to stay, despite her playfully frivolous demeanor. An improvised outburst by the clarinet emphasizes the disappointment and heartache felt by its character. Though short, the whimsical nature of the piece was the perfect introduction to the album.”
“Wrought with a variety of unique sounds, extended techniques, and other aural effects, the story is brought to life in an impressively convincing and delightful way. Both Piazza-Pick and Groom executed their roles so effectively, I often wondered if there were more than two performers.”
International Clarinet Association Journal (The Clarinet vol. 50, no. 4)
“Ashi Day’s work “Thursday” welcomes the listener with Groom’s rich, fluid, and colorful tone and skilled technical ability. The duo establishes their virtuosity with the use of color as a primary component in their performance, and Groom’s sensitivity to the entry of the voice. She executes extended techniques... with clarity and fluidity, effortlessly integrat- ing them into the music...This is a must-have album, not just for the wonderful playing, but because the choices of repertoire were intentional and put to- gether in a masterful way. ”
Narrative the Build We, The Source Festival
“...a gentle and even jaunty reminder of how we rush to fill in storytelling blanks...”
I Thought the Earth Remembered Me, banished? productions, Capital Fringe Festival
“...you’ll leave I Thought the Earth Remembered Me with a sense of childlike wonder that you may not have felt since you graduated from the third grade and a peace you may never have felt during waking hours...”
"The Dove Pursues the Griffin", Cantilena, a women's chorale
“...refreshingly vivid, guttural experience... dramatically successful...”
Additional Media
Opera America’s Teens Tackle Opera Podcast: Special Edition: Interview with Composer Ashi Day
District New Music Coalition Podcast Episode 4: Ashi Day; William Kenlon and Meghan Shanley Alger, hosts
Whistling Hens Living Composer Spotlight: Diana Rosenblum & Ashi Day
0:00 Interview with Diana Rosenblum; 25:35 “Winter Rain” (Rosenblum); 29:15 Interview with Ashi Day; 44:24 “The Green Child” (Day); 59:30 Conversation with Whistling Hens, Diana Rosenblum, and Ashi Day
StageFree Podcast: Episode 8—Concert 2.4: Bytes and Brushes