Ashley began studying Suzuki violin at age 2 and piano at age 6. She attended two Tennessee All-State Orchestras, the Sewanee Summer Music Festival, the Indiana University String Academy. She was concertmaster of the Dobyns-Bennett Orchestra, a first violinist of the Johnson City Symphony and Knoxville Youth Symphony, and taught private lessons for four years. She founded the original Encore Four quartet in Tennessee, a quartet that performed for two state governors, presidential hopeful Lamar Alexander, and approximately 50 weddings and corporate events. She won several Grandfather Mountain Scottish Fiddling competitions and competed at the Scottish Fiddling Nationals in Alexandria, Virginia, and received a fourth place finish. Ashley studied music, business, and psychology at the University of Washington. Currently, Ashley plays with the Northwest Symphony.
Sada James Watson set out on her musical journey with violin in hand at age 9 in Spokane, Washington. She quickly engrossed herself in the musical community, playing in her school orchestra and local youth symphony. In her spare time she enjoyed playing with her string quartet at weddings and special events. Taking her part in Solo and Ensemble Competitions she frequently walked away with gold awards. Keeping to her intuitive heart, she packed all of her belongings and moved to Seattle where she discovered her passion for teaching. She keeps a schedule of 50 private students who are all excelling and enjoying the wonder of music. Incorporating classical, fiddle, jazz and improvisation into her lesson plans, Sada and her students look forward to the melodies, harmonies and rhythms that always seem to find their way into our lives.
Scott has been playing and composing music for most of his life (almost 20 years now!). He is the principal violist of the Sammamish Symphony, performs regularly with the Puget Sound Symphony Orchestra, and was the musical director of an a cappella group at the University of Washington for seven seasons. Scott is an alumnus of the University of Southern California, where he obtained dual degrees in music composition (film scoring emphasis) and computer engineering/computer science. Professionally, Scott works at Microsoft as the Microsoft Game Technology Group's Senior Audio Specialist, assisting composers, sound designers, and audio programmers with technical and creative challenges in their Xbox 360 and Windows games. Scott has composed music for a wide range of media, including film, television, games, and live performance. He is the co-author of the book "DirectX Audio Exposed: Interactive Audio Development" (Wordware), winner of the 2003 Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.) Best Audio Publication award. A regular lecturer and panelist at various game- and audio-related conferences, he is a lecturer in the Pacific Northwest Film Scoring Program, and becomes an adjunct professor on the University of Southern California faculty in 2007 to teach a course entitled ‘Music and Sound Design for Video Games’.
Derek was born and raised in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin. He attended the University of Wisconsin on a full-tuition cello
scholarship. While in college, he composed, played orchestral and chamber music
and studied cello privately. Nevertheless, Ho decided to prepare for a "real
job" and graduated in 2000 with a Bachelor's Degree in Bacteriology. Currently
he is in his third year of the PhD program in Pathobiology at the University of
Washington, while remaining active as a freelance cellist and composer.
Derek started playing piano at 5, switched to cello at 8, and currently is
assistant principal cello of the Puget Sound Symphony Orchestra.
