ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
JEFFREY SMITH, Canon Director of Music
Jeffrey Smith was appointed Canon Director of Music in May 2004. He is active as a choral conductor, workshop leader, teacher and recitalist. He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Yale University as well as degrees from Northwestern University and the Royal College of Music, London. His teachers include Thomas Murray, Gerre Hancock, Wolfgang Rübsam, and David Willcocks. Dr. Smith studied improvisation with Philippe Lefebvre, Organist of Notre Dame de Paris, and has undertaken an extensive tour of the German boy choir tradition. His choral and organ disks on the Pro Organo label have been critically praised. As a commentator on church music, he has been heard on both NPR and BBC Radio.
From 1992 to 2004, Dr. Smith served as Music Director of St. Paul's Parish, K Street ,Washington, DC, where he trained three choirs, including separate choirs for boy and girl trebles. Under his direction, the choirs appeared regularly at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, including performances with the National Symphony Orchestra. Before his time in Washington, D.C., Dr. Smith was the Organist-Choirmaster of Christ Church Cathedral in Lexington, KY. Dr. Smith is active in the work of the Royal School of Church Music and the Association of Anglican Musicians. He won highest honors in receiving his Fellowship of the American Guild of Organists. He was awarded the Fellowship of the Royal School of Church Music in a ceremony at York Minster in June, 2004.
Jeffrey Smith is married to Elisabeth Braw, a Swedish journalist; their son, Sebastian Braw-Smith, was born in March 2003 and daughter, Daniela, in August 2006.
September 2006