Robert Ashley (b. 1930; d. 2014) was a composer and one of the leaders of the ONCE Festival.
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Ashley was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He studied at the University of Michigan and the Manhattan School of Music. He focused on speech research and psychoacoustics. In the 1960s, he organized the ONCE Festival in Ann Arbor, where from 1964 to 1969, he presented his first mixed-media operas. He worked with the Sonic Arts Union—a collective of composers featuring Alvin Lucier, Gordon Mumma, and David Behrman.
