Ashley Sandor Sidon is Assistant Professor of Cello at Drake University.  Prior to this appointment, Dr. Sidon was Cello Teacher/Chamber Music Coach and Lecturer in Twentieth-Century Music at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in Shanghai, China. While teaching in Shanghai, she toured Southeast Asia to present recitals and master classes at provincial cultural centers, music schools and other concert venues. Previously Instructor of Cello and Director of Chamber Music at Earlham College in Indiana (USA), Dr. Sidon is cellist and manager of the Emery Trio and a former associate member of the Chicago Civic Orchestra. She holds the degree, Doctorate of Musical Arts in Violoncello, from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where her principal teacher was internationally acclaimed cellist, Yehuda Hanani.  

Dr. Sidon has been an invited performer and clinician nationally (US) and internationally, including invited performances at several of the provincial conservatories of Music in China, Hong Kong and Singapore, the Taipei (Taiwan) String Festival at Taipei American School, College Music Society Southeast Convention, the Music Educator's National Conference (MENC) Southeast Convention (2003) and the MENC National Conference (2004). She has performed at college campuses such as the Crane School of Music, Miami University, the University of Tennessee, and the University of Minnesota and has continuing commitments to other campuses in the US. As a member of the Emery Trio, she has performed and taught master classes in Atlanta, Cincinnati, at the governors honors programs for Georgia and Kentucky, and at colleges across the Midwestern and Southeastern US, as well as appearing on radio broadcasts of live concerts. Dr. Sidon is a proponent of contemporary music and has premiered compositions by composers Philip Koplow and Roger Vogel.

Ashley Sandor Sidon has performed under artists such as Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Christopher Wilkins. She has won several concerto competitions, including First Prize in the Colorado College Festival Competition and Silver Medal in the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music Concerto Competition. Dr. Sidon has performed in master classes for Bernard Greenhouse, Desmond Hoebig, Michael Strauss, Richard Aaron, Sandra Rivers, Peter Ouindjin, James Tocco, and the Tokyo String Quartet. Her research document titled "Lineage and Comparison of Versions of Igor Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne" was published by the Hawaii International Conference on the Arts (2004). During the summer, she is on the artist-faculty of the New England Music Camp (ME).