Utah violinist Jack Ashton, who introduced students to 'the joy of creating music,' has died

SALT LAKE CITY — Jack Ashton, who as a kid dreamed of playing shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates before he picked up a violin and went on to inspire generations of students to find joy in making music, died on March 15 at the age of 86.

Remembering Utah violinist Jack Ashton

"You could make a very strong argument that no one in the history of the state has done more for young violinists in Utah than the farm kid from Idaho," Lee Benson wrote in a 2016 Deseret News profile on Ashton.

The statement is far from hyperbole — the longtime violinist and educator was a beloved figure in Utah's classical music scene, on and off the stage.

For nearly half a century, he was a member of the Utah Symphony. He taught orchestra at Olympus High School, his alma mater, for 35 years. He served as an adjunct faculty member at Snow College for 20 years, and also at Utah State University and Westminster College, according to his obituary.

In 1985 he formed the Young Artist Chamber Players, a training ground for aspiring professional classical musicians that took students on tours throughout Europe and Utah.

All the while, his home, where he raised a family of eight with his wife of 55 years, Marie, served as a musical center for students, recitals and other gatherings.

"Jack's always been involved because he loves teaching the kids and being with them," Marie previously told the Deseret News. "His payday is the satisfaction he gets from that."

All of Ashton's wide-ranging contributions stem from an unlikely encounter on his family's dairy farm in Tyhee, Idaho, about 8 miles north of Pocatello. He was a kid when a peddler renting musical instruments knocked on his door.

"Dad came in and said he told the guy at the door I'd play violin," Ashton told the Deseret News. "That's as much say as I had in the matter."

It quickly became apparent that Ashton had a gift, and he began taking private lessons. By the time he was a teenager, his family had sold the farm and moved to Salt Lake City, where Ashton enrolled at Olympus High School and made first-chair violinist in the All-State orchestra, per the Deseret News.

That caught the attention of legendary conductor Maurice Abravanel, who helmed the Utah Symphony for 32 years and helped establish the orchestra's reputation.

After Ashton finished a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Germany, completed a year in the U.S. Army and earned his degree from the University of Utah, Abravanel recruited the violinist into his orchestra.

Ashton has called being a member of the Utah Symphony "the most thrilling time of my life."

But it was in teaching, as he watched his students develop and grow and become excellent musicians, that he found the most significance.

'I've been so blessed in what I've done'

Ashton received a number of awards throughout his career, including the Utah Governor's Mansion Artist Award in 2021, celebrating his work of "introducing students to the joy of creating music," per PBSUtah.org. He was 83 at the time.

"They are great and their greatness clearly lies in their artist accomplishments, but I think there's something greater in both of them, and that is that they are both teachers," Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said during the ceremony honoring Ashton and muralist V. Kim Martinez. "I want to thank you both for sharing your art, more importantly, sharing your love of art with your students and making the world a better place."

In an interview for the award, Ashton reflected on all of the work and sacrifice that went into his career — to the extent that he'd come home and his kids would say to their mom, "There's a guy in our house," he joked.

He shared that he felt motivated to work hard in part because both his father and grandfather had died at a fairly young age.

"I thought that I was going to die when I was 49, and so I worked as hard as I could to get a house, get everything situated for my wife," he said. "But I didn't die."

So for several decades, Ashton devoted his life to the power of music education.

"I'm very sensitive to music, especially good music. It's like a SugarBee apple, you just can't find anything sweeter than that," he said in the interview for his Governor's Mansion Artist Award.

"The arts can connect to a high degree, connect us with each other," he added. "You get your very own baton, your very own magic stick, you wave it and all of a sudden there's this tremendous sound."

Ashton was visibly emotional as he received the Governor's Mansion Artist Award, a prestigious recognition for a career he never could've imagined as a kid on his family's farm in Idaho.

"I had a dream the other night, and in this dream these young people, all these students who I've taught, came back and we were seeing each other. ... The rejoicing that went on in that dream was so beautiful," he shared in the interview for the award. "I think I couldn't have had that experience on the Pittsburgh Pirates, no way. I may have earned a lot more money, but I've been so blessed in what I've done."

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