Name: Ashley O'Brien Town: Winooski Job: Funeral singer As a professional musician, Ashley O'Brien may have the most diverse audiences in Vermont. They literally span from cradle to grave. A classically trained pianist, O'Brien works as a composer and music director at Very Merry Theatre, a Burlington-based musical-theater company for children. She gives theater and music lessons at the Green Mountain Valley School in Waitsfield for teenage ski racers. Her Ashley O'Brien Band plays classic blues and rock covers at Snow Farm Vineyard. And for the dinner crowds, O'Brien performs with Neat, With a Twist, a local theater company whose shows include the musical-comedy revue "Ladies Who Laugh." (O'Brien sings Gilda Radner's "Let's Talk Dirty to the Animals.") But she has a serious side, too. As music director at the Catholic Center at the University of Vermont, O'Brien performs weekly at Sunday mass. Her most unique gigs rarely earn her standing ovations: singing at funerals. The 34-year-old Winooski native got her musical start at 12 playing piano during Sunday services at St. Stephen Church. After earning a music degree at the Crane School of Music at State University of New York at Potsdam, she returned to Vermont. O'Brien's first funeral gig, in 2007, was for her own grandfather. She's played at funerals ever since. Typically, O'Brien gets booked through local funeral directors, priests or the families themselves, many of whom know her from church or through her parents. In fact, she said, her folks occasionally attend the funerals of people they don't know just to hear her perform. Because there's so little competition, O'Brien gets hired often, sometimes doing as many as four funerals a week, especially during the holidays. She's not sure why so many people die then, but she theorized that they know deep winter is upon them. As she put it, "Part of me thinks that people are like, 'I don't want to do this again.'" SEVEN DAYS: Who picks the music for funerals? ASHLEY O'BRIEN: The funeral directors have lists. Sometimes I'll speak to the family, and they ask for options. I can rattle off 50 songs off the top of my head. Sometimes they'll say, "Do whatever you want." In those cases, I'll do songs I never get to do. SD: What are the most common requests? AO: "On Eagle's Wings," "Ave Maria," "Amazing Grace" and Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up." My…