Merrill Hall, MU310
Jeffrey Smith is professor of practice in organ: sacred music at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
Smith was music director at St. Paul’s Parish, K Street, in Washington D.C., for 17 years. St. Paul’s is well known as a beacon of liturgical and musical excellence.
From 2004 to 2009, he served as canon director of music at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. While there, he conducted its Choir of Men and Boys in an extensive liturgical program, devised and conducted tours and recordings, and oversaw a weekly concert series.
He is active as a choral conductor, workshop leader, and recitalist, and in the work of the Royal School of Church Music, American Guild of Organists, and Association of Anglican Musicians.
Smith earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Yale University and also studied at Northwestern University and the Royal College of Music, London. He won highest honors in receiving the fellowship of the American Guild of Organists and being named a fellow of the Royal School of Church Music and of the Guild of Church Music (U.K.).
Smith’s teachers included Thomas Murray, Wolfgang Rübsam, John Birch, and David Willcocks. He studied improvisation with Gerre Hancock and Philippe Lefebvre, organist of Notre Dame de Paris.
As a commentator on church music, Smith has been heard on both NPR and BBC radio, and his choral and organ discs on the Pro Organo label have been critically praised. His compositions are published by E. C. Schirmer.