Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra: Interview with 'The Great' guest conductor, Kirk Smith

[Kirk Smith, guest conductor for Gyro Productions Masters Series concert ‘The Great’ on January 19.]

Maestro Kirk Smith forwarded the link to this piece to the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College Chicago.  He has conducted its New Black Music Repertory Ensemble.

Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra
Karen Adams
January 14, 2013

I dial Kirk Smith’s Houston number with an impression from my research is that he is a man who is passionate about music, fun, life, and education. He answers warmly and without pretense, and I relax, knowing that we are going to have an interesting conversation.

I start by asking his thoughts on a partial quote I recently discovered: that “…the pursuit of educational and professional excellence [is] a means of advancement within society…” and how he thinks it applies to music.

What we do is, and always has been, a part of our various cultures and societies, in terms of both communicating art, and communicating feeling.

His response is thoughtful and deliberate: “… some people, when you tell them you’re a musician, ask, ‘… so what do you really do,’ as though what we do isn’t important enough—even though it is often very complex, very heartfelt, and very worked out intellectually. What we do is, and always has been, a part of our various cultures and societies, in terms of both communicating art, and communicating feeling.”

Smith talks eagerly about educating students and older people, about music being for all, not just for those belonging to a particular group. He gives an example of a class he introduced a complicated and difficult musical score to, and about how he was teaching them that it was nevertheless taken on by professionals, high schools, and even younger people.

Someone in the class made a comment, inferring that only younger children of a certain ethnicity would take on such a difficult piece. Smith says he took the time to educate the students right then and there about not holding on to a closed-minded idea about any group of people, or about any type of music, and encouraged them to experience life—and ultimately music—without such bias. “Musical traditions and ideas cross all cultures, and those kinds of closed-minded thoughts won’t be allowed in this class.”