The school has two Concert Band classes, a Jazz Band, and a Percussion Ensemble. There is also a String Orchestra class. In the 2010 winter season the music department started a competitive varsity winter guard and an indoor percussion ensemble. Both groups won 1st place in all competitions they participated in during the season, and both went on to win state titles in their divisions. The Winter Guard scored a 643 at state competition and the Indoor Percussion Ensemble scored an 84.7, the highest score of the day for a percussion group of any class. The ARHS winter ensembles are the first teams to achieve state titles in ARHS school history. The winter guard also won state in 2012 and 2013. The Indoor Percussion Ensemble won state in 2011 and 2013. In 2012, ARHS began a junior varsity guard to accompany the varsity team. The Marching band fielded their first show in 2009, and they are now a competitive 5A marching band. They have competed in the 5A State Competition since 2012 and made finals in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, and received a superior rating in 2019. The band also marches in the Summerville Christmas Parade. The Jazz Band, Concert Band and Marching band are under the Direction of Ben Pouncey. The Percussion Ensemble is under the direction of Josh Bohl.
Theater
Ashley Ridge offers courses in Theater Arts, Theater Design, and Musical Theater. The Theater Department performs a fall play and collaborates with the Chorus Department for a spring musical every year. In fall 2011, the Theater Department performed Oscar Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest. In 2012, the play The Yellow Boat was chosen, followed by the comedy Almost, Maine in 2013. In 2014, the Theater Department performed a version of A Midsummer Night's Dream set in 1969 Woodstock. In spring 2010, the Theater and Chorus Departments performed the school's first musical, Blast from the Past, followed by the musical Footloose in 2011. In 2012, the department chose the comedy Anything Goes, followed by Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music in 2013 and Once Upon a Mattress in 2014. They performed a censored version of Legally Blonde: The Musical for their spring musical in 2015.
Facilities
The school has a lunch room, auditorium, media center, gymnasium, mini gym, weight room and administrative Offices. The school is divided, with most of the academic classes in the "E"-shaped building that makes up the front half of the campus and most extracurricular classes and the arts hallway in the back half. In the 2014-2015 school year, construction began on an extension of the Fine Arts hallway and the parking lots.
