Renowned Clarinetist to Give Master Class April 28 at Cal Poly
Gregory Smith, principal clarinetist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, will present a master class for Cal Poly music students at 11 a.m., Thursday, April 28, in Room 218 in the Davidson Music Center (No. 45) on campus.
The master class is free and open to the public. During the class, several of the Music Department’s leading clarinet students will perform and be critiqued.
Smith is a clarinet professor at Roosevelt University's Chicago College of the Performing Arts. He has been a visiting professor of clarinet at Northwestern University and at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
When he was 24, he was appointed by Sir George Solti as clarinetist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Smith had previously been associate principal and E-flat clarinetist of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and principal clarinetist of the Sacramento Symphony Orchestra. He had also been principal clarinetist of the Scotia Festival Symphony Orchestra in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and principal clarinetist of the Ravinia Festival Orchestra in Chicago.
He was nominated with the Chicago Symphony Winds for a Grammy Award for best chamber music performance. He is a founding member of the Chamber Soloists of Chicago, whose performances are broadcast nationwide from WFMT, Chicago.
Smith participated in the Scotia Festival of Music, collaborating with members of the Lincoln Center Chamber Players, and was a featured guest artist on the Bay Chamber Concerts in Maine with members of the Vermeer Quartet. He has toured the U.S. under Columbia Artist Management with the Chicago Symphony Chamber Players. He has been a regular guest chamber musician and teacher at the Las Vegas Music Festival and at the Affinis Music Festival in Tokyo, Japan. He can be heard internationally as a featured soloist and chamber musician on CBC Radio, Canada.
Smith has performed at International Clarinet Association conferences worldwide and recently performed the world premiere of a concerto written for and dedicated to him at the international conference in Belgium. His two-month solo recital tour to six cities in Australia earned critical acclaim.
The master class is sponsored by Cal Poly's Music Department, College of Liberal Arts, and the Tevis Fund for Visiting Artists. For more information, call the Music Department at 805-756-2406.