BY KAREN BOSSICK

When Ashlie Pulleiro was but a junior-senior at Wood River High School, she was selected from more than 10,000 high school vocal students across the nation to sing alto at Carnegie Hall as part of the 2015 High School Honors Performance Series at Carnegie Hall.

It marked “the pinnacle of musical achievement,” said the program’s Director Morgan Smith.

The daughter of a very talented musical family, Pulleiro studied voice with R.L. Rowsey and piano with Leigh Heward at the Sun Valley Summer Symphony School of Music. She was a member of Wood River High School’s Enchante and Carmina Montis.

But she graduated a year early to pursue her musical talents at Brigham Young University-Idaho in Rexburg.

She came back to the Wood River Valley for the holidays this year, still bursting with musical accomplishment.

As a freshman, she became the only freshman ever to be selected to perform in the university’s elite ensemble Vocal Union.

“I was really excited to get into Vocal Union. There were 14 of us singing jazz and a cappella and we became really close,” she said. “All the girls became like my best friends—and that’s so important to have in your freshman year. I really appreciated the maturity level of the group.”

That first year she and the group sang for the BYU-Idaho Christmas Concert with guest artists Time for Three—a string trio that has performed as resident artist with the Sun Valley Summer Symphony for the past few years.

The performance aired on Idaho Public TV over the Christmas holiday season.

She and Vocal Union also sang before more than 21,000 people at the Semi-Annual LDS Conference in April 2016, which was broadcast to many more thousands.

“That was an incredible experience. It was a really special feeling to be surrounded by so many people who shared a common belief,” she said.

Last summer Pulleiro was among a number of young singers who got to sing with Tony Award winner Kristin Chenoweth as part of the Sun Valley Opera Workshops.

And last month she shared the stage with David Archuleta, the 2008 “American Idol” runner-up, and the classically trained tenor Nathan Pacheco as part of BYU-Idaho’s 2016 Christmas Concert. She also got to  tour Nevada and California with Vocal Union.

Now, at the age of 19, Pulleiro will embark on a new chapter in her life. She will head to Conception, Chile, this week.

There she will spend the next 18 months on a humanitarian mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

She’s grown up with stories of her family serving missions in Latin America. Her mother Charlotte Pulleiro served a 18-month mission in Chile. Her aunt and uncle have served there.

And her father Jorge Pulleiro, a dual immersion Spanish teacher at Wood River Middle School, served in Uruguay.

“It just felt like the timing was right,” she said.

You can bet she will continue singing—even if not on stage.

“When Ashlie sings at home, she sings so loud,” said her mother Charlotte. “And she doesn’t just sing in the shower—she sings all the time.”

Ashlie Pulleiro said singing calms her.

“It conveys emotion so much better than words can,” she said. “And it’s a language everyone can understand, even if you’re singing in a language they don’t know.”

WATCH ASHLIE:

Here are a couple excerpts from BYU’s show on Idaho Public TV. In the first, Ashlie Pulleiro is in the front with a red headband. In the second, she’s the girl in the middle at the 1:48 minute mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2k9kBxN_Zk&spfreload=10&scrlybrkr=a479eeb0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD01bbxgEjs&spfreload=10&scrlybrkr=a479eeb0