Discipline: Music Composition

David Smooke

Discipline: Music Composition
Region: Baltimore, MD
MacDowell Fellowships: 1996
More: www.davidsmooke.com
David Smooke is a composer who currently resides in Baltimore, where he teaches music theory, rock music history, and composition, and is the chair of the Music Theory Department at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. His honors include those from the Maryland State Arts Council, BMI, the National Association of Composers USA, MacDowell, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Yellow Barn. He has composed commissions for groups and individuals including the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Volti Choir, Rhymes With Opera, the Great Noise Ensemble, and the Peabody Wind Ensemble. He received an M.M. degree from the Peabody Conservatory, a B.A. magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, where he received the Century Fellowship, the highest fellowship offered by the Humanities Division. His composition teachers have included Shulamit Ran, David Rakowski, Robert Hall Lewis, and Richard Wernick. In addition to his composition activities, David performs improvisations on toy piano with the support of Schoenhut toy pianos, and has written extensively for NewMusicBox, the online magazine of New Music U.S.A.

Studios

Watson

David Smooke worked in the Watson studio.

Built in 1916 in memory of Regina Watson of Chicago, a musician and teacher, this studio was donated by a group of her friends, along with funds for its maintenance. Originally designed to serve as a composers’ studio with room for performance, Watson was used as a recital hall for chamber music for a…

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