Biography
Shawn Smith has served as Director of Bands at the university level for fifteen years and will now fill that position here at the BYU School of Music. He was formerly Associate Professor of Conducting and Director of Bands at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and also served the same role at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. In high demand as a band and orchestra conductor, clinician, and adjudicator, Smith has been invited to conduct professional and educational ensembles throughout the United States and internationally. His performances have been heard numerous times on American Public Media’s Performance Today, the most popular classical music radio program in the United States.
Equally at home with opera and musical theater productions, Smith has conducted pit orchestras for the Marriage of Figaro and a six-week run of Les Misérables. Smith conducts regularly in Brazil including professional and community bands from the large cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo to small towns and villages in Northern Brazil. Smith has presented numerous educational clinics and speeches, most notably at the International Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago and at state music conventions in Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina. He has also presented research at national and international conferences in the United States, Europe, and South America. As a public school teacher, Smith served as Director of Bands and Orchestra at one of the largest high schools in Idaho where he successfully led a comprehensive instrumental music program.
Education:
- DMA, Arizona State University
- MM, Louisiana State
- BM, Boise State University