By Joan C. McKinney, director, Office of University Communications

CAMPBELLSVILLE, Ky. - Dr. Janet Bass Smith will perform a work written for piano by her grandson, Trevor Taylor Smith, in a guest piano recital Thursday, Oct. 12 at 8 p.m. in The Gheens Recital Hall in Campbellsville University's Gosser Fine Arts Center at 210 University Drive, Campbellsville, Ky.

Trevor Smith's work is titled “Five Ekmousikès” and is a multi-movement work for solo piano composed in 2016 to satisfy his thesis requirements for a Master of Music degree in Composition at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Conservatory of Music and Dance.

The work is dedicated to and being premiered by his grandmother, Dr. Janet Bass Smith, who is also a graduate of UMKC.

Dr. Smith will also be giving a masterclass for university pianists on Friday, Oct. 13 from 10 a.m. until noon in The Gheens Recital Hall. The two programs are open to the public free of charge.

As a performer, Trevor Smith has won many awards in both classical and jazz competitions, winning outstanding awards on saxophone at the MAC Jazz Festival, Truman Jazz Festival, Chicago's Heritage Music Festival and at the Elmhurst Jazz Festival, where he also presented original compositions in both jazz combo and big band form.

Smith has also won several honors at the state level in Missouri, including All-State Band in 2010 on alto saxophone, and Missouri's All-Collegiate Orchestra in 2013 on oboe.

Smith's output as a composer is often informed by his work as a performer, drawing from a wide variety of influences and musical contexts. He has written and recorded music for jazz and R&B drummer Bo Lamar's collective “Sanctuary,” performed original works as a soloist with the aid of live electronics and composed acoustic works for chamber ensembles.

He self-published his album “Isolation Chamber” in December 2015.

Smith has studied composition with Dr. James Mobberley, Dr. Paul Rudy, Dr. Zhou Long and Dr. Chen Yi at the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance, and also studied with Dr. Robert Fruehwald and Dr. Robert Conger at Southeast Missouri State University where he graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Music in Composition in 2014.

Dr. Smith holds the Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance from the University of Missouri-­Kansas City, Conservatory of Music, and the Masters of Music, summa cum laude, from UNC-Greensboro.

She has served on several college and university faculties, has taught piano for 65 years, maintains an independent piano studio in Bowling Green, Ky., and continues to perform throughout the United States.

As a soloist and with her husband, flutist Charles Smith, she has performed throughout the United States, Europe and in St. Petersburg, Russia.                                                                        In 2008 she performed a unique concert inside Mammoth Cave, played inside the cave again in December 2015 and on the surface in July 2016.

She has won awards for her poetry and oil paintings and unique creations with found objects. A founding member of the Bowling Green Chamber Orchestra (now Orchestra Kentucky), she served as principal keyboardist from 2000 to 2006, and from 2002 to 2007 served as marketing chair.

Articles she has written have been published in several scholarly journals, and in 2013 she was named a Fellow of the Music Teachers National Association. In 2012 she was presented the Ed Bishop award for research from Mammoth Cave National Park where she was a seasonal park ranger from 1993 through 2014.

She has been married to flutist/composer Charles W. Smith since 1957. They have four sons (one deceased), seven grandchildren and one great grandchild.

For more information about the concert, contact Dr. Wesley Roberts, professor of music, at wmroberts@campbellsville.edu or (270) 789-5287.
Campbellsville University is a widely-acclaimed Kentucky-based Christian university with more than 5,000 students offering over 80 programs of study including 19 master's degrees, six postgraduate areas and seven pre-professional programs.  The university has off-campus centers in Louisville, Harrodsburg, Somerset and Hodgenville with instructional sites in Elizabethtown, Owensboro, and Summersville and a full complement of online programs.  The website for complete information is campbellsville.edu.

 

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