Leslie Ashworth

Leslie Ashworth (MM ’23, viola) is among Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s 2021 Hot 30 Under 30 Classical Musicians, a 2022 prize winner of the Stepping Stone International Competition, and a 2024 Primrose Viola Competition quarter finalist. She has performed in the Perlman Music Program’s Chamber Music Workshop, with a quartet in residence at European American Musical Alliance (EAMA) in Paris, in chamber music performances at the Thy Festival in Denmark, with the Takács String Quartet at Santa Barbara’s Music Academy of the West, and with Barbara Hannigan at the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance in Nova Scotia. Ashworth has been mentored in master classes with Kim Kashkashian, Robert Levin, Leon Fleisher, Jaime Laredo, and Samuel Rhodes. 

Passionate about community engagement, Ashworth received the Ontario Lieutenant Governor’s volunteer award for founding the nonprofit Suite Melody Care. She has taught weekly music appreciation classes in elementary schools in Harlem, the Bronx, and Manhattan as a Morse Fellow (2021–present) and has served as a teaching artist for the Celia Cruz High School’s 2024 Summer Strings program.

Pursuing her Doctor of Musical Arts under Misha Amory at Juilliard, Ashworth also earned her master’s in violin at Rice University with Paul Kantor and a bachelor’s in violin at the Glenn Gould School, Royal Conservatory of Music with Paul Kantor and Barry Shiffman. She plays a 1696 Albani violin on loan from a private benefactor and an 1854 Joseph Rocca viola on loan from Juilliard. She gratefully acknowledges the Sylva Gelber Music Foundation (2022–24). 

Ashworth teaches ear training to College, Pre-College, and Extension students.