Steven Smith conducts the first concert of NEOSonicFest, which features specials guests Verb Ballets in a piece by Geoff Peterson, "The Edmund Fitzgerald – Concerto for Piano and Strings."
About Cleveland Chamber Symphony
The Grammy Award Winning Cleveland Chamber Symphony (CCS) performs music of our time that dares to explore under the direction of Music Director Steven Smith. For more than 30 years CCS has nurtured composers, musicians and audiences through professional performances, recordings, commissions, and educational experiences. The Cleveland Chamber Symphony’s excellence has been recognized with prestigious awards including a Grammy and ASCAP John S. Edwards Awards. Throughout its existence CCS has contributed to the advancement of the art of contemporary American music and promoted the dissemination of musical works by composers of our time. CCS is a non-profit 501c organization.
About Steven Smith
This season, Steven Smith celebrates his fourth season as Music Director of the Richmond Symphony and his third season in the Lewis T. Booker Music Director Chair. He continues as Music Director of the Grammy Award-winning Cleveland Chamber Symphony and in 2013 completed a 14 year tenure as Music Director of the Santa Fe Symphony & Chorus.
From 1997 to 2003, Steven Smith served as the Assistant Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra where he appeared on the subscription series at Severance Hall and Blossom Music Center. With a strong commitment to arts education, he assisted in the planning and conducting of the Cleveland Orchestra’s educational and family concerts and hosted the orchestra’s annual broadcast videoconference which won an Emmy Award in 2001. For five seasons, he also served as Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra which performed by invitation at Carnegie Hall in 2001. From 2002-05, he was associate professor at Oberlin Conservatory, where he led both orchestral and opera performances.
In April 2013, Steven Smith made his debut with the Virginia Opera conducting their performances of Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro." Steven Smith has appeared as guest conductor with orchestras such as San Francisco, Milwaukee, Houston, Detroit, Puerto Rico Symphony and the Aspen Music Festival. Abroad, he has performed with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, New Zealand’s Auckland Philharmonia, Taiwan’s National Symphony Orchestra and Mexico’s Orquesta Sinfónica de Xalapa. In addition, he has conducted numerous opera and orchestral performances at Indiana University and Brevard Music Center.
Steven Smith is an ASCAP award-winning composer, with commissions from the Cleveland Orchestra, Grand Rapids Symphony, Eugene Youth Symphony and solo artists. He was named Ohio Composer of the Year for 2008. A native of Toledo, Ohio, Steven Smith earned Master’s degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music. He is the recipient of the CIM Alumni Association 1999 Alumni Achievement Award and the Geraldine C. and Emory M. Ford Foundation’s Conductor Career Development Grant.
About Geoffrey Peterson
His music has been performed throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. Venues include the Curtis Institute of Music, the Cleveland Institute of Music, Ohio Wesleyan University, the University of Miami, Northwestern University, DePaul University, Pennsylvania State University, Temple University, the Philadelphia Music School Settlement, Swarthmore College, the Fleisher Art Memorial, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Beck Center for the Arts, and the San Salvatore Church in Prague.
Recent works include: "A Mighty Handful: Symphonic Portraits of the Russian Five" for wind ensemble; "Danse Diabolique" for orchestra; "Homage to Donald Erb" performed by renowned French bassoonist Pascal Gallois at the Boyer College of Music and Dance at Temple University in 2007; "Seasons" premiered by the award-winning Cavani Quartet in 2007; "Three Haiku" commissioned by the Beck Center Children’s Choirs and premiered in Lakewood, Ohio in 2007; "The Edmund Fitzgerald," a piano concerto, premiered by the Sault Symphony in Ontario, Canada in 2005; he was awarded a grant through the American Composers Forum Community Partners program to write a cantata, "The Living Cathedral," for chorus, organ and brass quintet which premiered in 2004. He also wrote incidental music for the play "Vinegar Tom" produced at DePaul University in 2000. His "Sonata for Solo Oboe" has been performed by the principal oboists of the National Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, and the Sarasota Orchestra, and was featured at an International Double Reed Society conference.