Larry Alan Smith

After taking some time off for the holidays, as well as family and work-related international travel in January, I am returning to my website.

Some news and recent additions:

On February 16th, Neuma Records released Kinesis, Vol. 2, a double album featuring the the Athens-based Galan Trio. My Piano Trio No. 3 (2022), a work written for and premiered by the ensemble in Italy last January, is one of the 12 works on this new recording.

For more information, click here. Please note: This link also includes links to the streaming services where the recording is currently available. They include Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, Amazon, Pandora, and Deezer. Although it is not listed, I found the album on my YouTube Premium service.

---

Recordings of two piano works have been added:

Third Piano Sonata (1979) – Marguerita Oundjian Smith, piano

Fortune (1985) – Mary Kathleen Ernst, piano

---

Our National Anthem . . . Two arrangements by Larry Alan Smith

The Star-Spangled Banner for solo violin

The Star Spangled Banner for an ensemble of strings

If you want to read and hear more, click here!

---

The website will eventually include several photo galleries. Today, I want to launch a gallery that focuses on musicians. Click here to see the first of many photos.

I have enjoyed many different roles during the course of my career, but perhaps the most important and most consistent role has been serving as a teacher and mentor.

After a two-year graduate assistantship at The Juilliard School from 1977-79 (while pursuing my Master of Music degree in composition), I was hired to teach full-time at the Boston Conservatory for the 1979-80 academic year. That new opportunity required boarding a 2:00 AM train on Monday at New York’s Penn Station, arriving in Boston bright and early, teaching all day, and then taking a 10 PM train back to New York that arrived at 3:00 AM on Tuesday. Tuesday was taken up with my doctoral studies at Juilliard, and on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, I headed back to Boston for part two of my weekly travels. It was an absolutely wild schedule, but I loved every minute of it, and I really enjoyed working with my students. Clearly, teaching would be a major part of my life.

During the 1980-81 academic year, I joined the full-time faculty of The Juilliard School where I taught for six years before assuming a series of positions that would combine academic, artistic, and administrative roles with my love of teaching.

My life has been enriched by my students, and I am in their debt. Click here to explore My Students (1979 to the present).

AND . . .

Frequent visitors to this site will know that I have been steadily adding recordings of my music. The 2023 Thanksgiving edition includes one of my acousmatic works, Una donna, un uomo ed alcune pecore ( A woman, a man and some sheep). Click here to read the program notes and access the audio file.

My website continues to develop . . .

1) A recording of my Three Pieces for Piano (2015), as performed by my wife, pianist Marguerita Oundjian Smith, has been added. Click here for the page that includes the audio files, as well as photos of the art in Mexico City that inspired the music.

2) Today, I am introducing a page I call LAS Musings.

My father, Lawrence Alexander Smith (1918-70), was a veteran of World War II.

This morning, I spent some time going through documents, photos, and memorabilia related to his military service in the early 1940’s, and I thought they would provide a fitting introduction to what I have written about January 27, 1973, the end of the Vietnam War, and draft numbers for Americans born in 1955.

Having my father’s uniform means a great deal to me. More than 80 years have passed. Remarkable.

Click here for LAS Musings.

. . . from three invigorating weeks of music, art, family, friends, colleagues, walking, wine, and writing (piano music and poetry). 

There were three stops.

New York City: Activities included attending a Tertulia performance that featured violinists Livia Sohn and Jimmy Thompson, violist Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, and cellist Sterling Elliott; celebrating our recent 45th wedding anniversary with members of our family who took us to the Trevor Noah performance at the Beacon Theater; taking in MoMA’s Picasso in Fontainebleau; hearing a performance at Christ and St. Stephen’s Church by Juilliard organ students; and attending James Austin Smith’s Hearing Memory at National Sawdust in Brooklyn.

Switzerland: Activities included attending the first six days of Le Bois qui Chante (a music festival in its 23rd season) in Château-d’Oex where I heard performances by Le Concert impromptu, Le Quintette du Jet d’Eau, pianist and alphornist Christophe Sturzenegger, and soprano Beatrice Villiger. Beatrice is the Artistic Director of the festival.

Italy: In addition to attending a program honoring the memory of Italian musician and composer Mario Giusti, my time in Abruzzo was spent planning future performances with artist friends, including an instrumentalist, a choral conductor, and a choreographer/dancer. Wine, as is usually the case, was an important part of my three-week trip. However, one morning stood out as a friend and I held our meeting at a winery, walking through the vineyards and an olive grove.

After giving a series of remote lectures at Xinghai Conservatory in Guangzhou, China during November 2022, I was approached by a graduate student who wanted to know more about my music. She was particularly interested in my harmonic writing and my work with art song. I happily shared some music with her, and now, ten months later, two of my works have become the topic of her approved Master of Music thesis. That thesis is scheduled to be completed in 2025.

拉里.艾伦.史密斯两套声乐套曲的和声特点研究 – A Study on the Harmonic Characteristics of Two Song Cycles by Larry Alan Smith

Li Qing is a student at the South China University of Technology’s School of Arts majoring in composition technique theory, and she will be researching my Emily Dickinson Songs (2005) and A Slash of Blue! A sweep of Gray! (2010). Both of these song cycles involve poems written by Emily Dickinson. (Recordings of both works are included on this website.)

I have seen a summary of Li Qing’s preliminary research plans, and she will be including information about my training in France with Nadia Boulanger, as well as my study at The Juilliard School with Vincent Persichetti. She will also be focusing on the 14 Dickinson poems I used to create the two song cycles. Most importantly, she will be delving into my harmonic language and my approach to the writing of art song.

This is an exciting project, and I look forward to providing Li Qing with any information and documents she might need to complete her work. I am humbled by her interest in my music. Stay tuned for updates on the research during the coming months.

Today happens to be my birthday. When I was in my late-40’s and early-50’s, I used to dread my birthdays. My father died at age 52 when I was 14, and my mother died at age 54 when I was 25. Each time a doctor would ask about my family history, I would cringe and reluctantly provide the details. However, as I grew older and actually outlived my parents, it seemed that there might be some reason for hope.

Now, at 68, I feel healthy, vital, and nowhere near my age. 68 must be the new 48 . . . or perhaps even younger! Each day is a blessing, and I try to celebrate by being careful about what I eat, walking as much as possible (I am currently on a nearly 800-day walking streak), and enjoying the tremendous blessings of having a wonderful family that includes my wife (we just celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary!), my four sons, their spouses, and my four grandchildren. I am also fortunate to have a large extended family.

With one of my grandchildren

To be honest, I am not the biggest fan of social media these days. Advertising overwhelms content, content is meant to be brief (and “catchy”), and posts are quickly buried as the newest material appears. This is distinctly unsatisfying for someone like yours truly who has spent his life building work (artistic and otherwise) that is meant to be carefully constructed and hopefully long lasting.

Therefore, I am trying a different approach as this new website takes shape. Part blog . . . part online exhibit . . . part whatever I want it to be! I like the idea of creating something that can be explored over time during multiple visits. My goal is to communicate with intention and care.

The irony is that I will probably use social media to advertise new content on this site!