Marie Smith

About Marie Smith

Dr. Marie Smith is an active teacher and performer. She is currently on faculty at Pittsburg State University as the adjunct horn instructor as well as the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith, teaching high brass lessons and music appreciation. Dr. Smith has performed in a variety of ensemble settings including symphony and pit orchestras; wind, horn, and brass ensembles; and wind and brass quintets. Marie previously taught at Colby College in Waterville, Maine where she also performs as principal horn in the Colby Symphony Orchestra and Colby Wind Ensemble.

An enthusiastic ensemble performer, Marie has played with the Utah Festival Opera, Idaho Falls Opera Theater, the American Festival Orchestra and New American Philharmonic in Utah as well as the Eastern Festival Orchestra in North Carolina. She played in the pit orchestra for the world premiere of South Pass! The Musical in Jackson, WY. Marie has attended multiple summer festivals including the Kent/Blossom Music Festival, Hot Springs Music Festival, Marrowstone Music Festival, and the Eastern Music Festival.

Along with performance, Marie enjoys reading and research. Marie’s topics of research cover a broad spectrum spanning from the influence of the vocal improvisatory tradition on Rossini’s Prelude Theme and Variations for Horn and Piano, to the pervasive gender ideology surrounding women in brass performance, to the need to include sound quality as a metric along with physical sensation to understand best physical use in pedagogy. Her article, Natural Horn Technique Guiding Modern Orchestral Performance, is published in the May and October 2016 issues of the Horn Call, the official journal of the International Horn Society. It was also presented orally at the Southeast Horn Workshop in 2017.

Marie holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Eastman School of Music, a Masters of Music degree from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and a Bachelors of Music degree from Utah State University. Her primary teachers include Professor W. Peter Kurau, Dr. Maria Serkin, Dr. Joseph Falvey, and Steve Park. She has also worked with Maura McCune Corvington, Richard King, Alan DeMattia, Dr. Margaret Tung, Joy Branagan, and Robert Rearden.

Education

• D.M.A. Eastman School of Music, New York, U.S.A.
• M.M. University of North Carolina School of the Arts, North Carolina, U.S.A.
• B.M.E. Utah State University, Utah, U.S.A.