014 - 043

Ashia
Las Vegas, NV, USA

"Fossil"
Ashia Grzesik - cello, voice

Ashia blends sensual and provoking vocals with various colors of the cello ranging from plucked bass lines to sonorous melodic phrases. With her unique ability to play cello and sing simultaneously, she creates songs with elements of blues, folk, trip-hop, and classical into her own style of expression, text-coloring, and nuance. Having had classical training in both cello and voice, Ashia freely expresses her lively and dynamic nature. Her sincerity was felt by Janos Starker, renown cellist and pedagogue, when he told her "you have soul" after her performance at a masterclass of his. Coming from a family with a musical and theatrical background, her father a blues singer and mother a former actor, Ashia knew she was meant to lead a life in an artistic field. While still in high-school she began to combine singing and playing the cello and continued this distinct duo into college at Central Washington University with a Farrell Merit Scholarship recital titled Non Traditional Cello. At the age of 21 she left school and ran away to play and sing at Cirque du Soleil's prestigious "O" show in Las Vegas, NV for four months. She returned a year later after traveling to Europe and studying to join O full-time, where she currently performs. In the show, she appears onstage as a dark, mysterious cello playing character. Her interaction with a duo or single trapeze act and the music score by Benoit Jutras inspires her choreography as she walks across the stage while playing the cello. Outside of working at "O", Ashia has performed alongside band members of BlueManGroup and cast members of sister Cirque du Soleil shows, as well as completing a BA in music at CWU. Within the last year she has been writing songs and has performed at such venues as Studio 54s Open Forum , The Celebrity, and Art Bar in Las Vegas, NV and also at The Bourgeois Pig, Chicago, Il. Currently, Ashia is working on an album of songs about nostalgia, desire, transcendence, and love- ofcourse. These songs reflect the many musical influences in her life and extend beyond the conformity of genre labeling.

www.myspace.com/ashiavc