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Matt Smith is one of eight Resident Composers selected to participate in the 2025 Mizzou International Composers Festival. MICF Resident Ensemble Alarm Will Sound will perform his composition As Brightness Is To Time at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 26, at Columbia’s Missouri Theatre. The concert is free and open to the public.
Matt Smith is a Los Angeles-based composer whose music blends lush harmonies, lyricism, and imaginative soundscapes, inspired by storytelling, philosophy, and nature. His works have been performed at the Aspen Music Festival, Atlantic Music Festival, Accademia Chigiana, Severance Hall, and Dance Camera West. He has collaborated with ensembles such as the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini, Orchestra Senzaspine, the Diotima String Quartet, and acclaimed artists including Grammy winning soprano Hilá Plitmann and harpist Alexander Boldachev. Matt earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Cleveland Institute of Music and is currently pursuing a PhD at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, studying with Richard Danielpour and Ian Krouse. He is also a pianist, trombonist, singer, and producer. Upcoming projects include a work for the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles and a collaboration with Brightwork New Music Ensemble.
We recently chatted with him via email.
What is your musical background? When and how did you begin composing?
I grew up taking piano lessons and playing trombone in bands and orchestras, and I also played a lot of jazz. The first time I became aware of the idea of composing was through music for film and video games, especially John Williams and Nobuo Uematsu. I started writing and improvising music (mostly ripoffs of their work) when I was 12 or 13.
Through the San Diego Youth Symphony, I had the opportunity to meet William Kraft, who gave me some early encouragement and made me aware of summer programs for high school students. I attended the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Young Composer Program and met Margaret Brouwer, who became my first real teacher. I went on to do my undergraduate and master’s degrees at CIM (2006–2012), studying with Brouwer, Keith Fitch, and Steven Mark Kohn.
After graduating, I became interested in audio engineering and music production, which I felt at the time was a safer path in the music industry. I freelanced and taught music theory and history in Los Angeles for several years, but the pandemic forced a shift in perspective. I was either going to have to completely rebuild my freelance career or take a new direction. I began looking into doctoral programs and reached out to several schools. This led to my meeting Richard Danielpour, who’s now one of my teachers. I decided to recommit to composing concert music, applied to UCLA, and was accepted in 2023.
I’m currently a PhD student and teaching assistant at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, where I study composition with Richard Danielpour and Ian Krouse, and pursue research under the guidance of musicologist Joy Calico.
How did you hear about MICF?
I first heard about MICF from Professor Kay Rhie, a member of the composition faculty at UCLA. Having been away from the contemporary music world for nearly a decade, I needed advice on how to re-enter the field and navigate the current landscape. Prof. Rhie suggested MICF as an opportunity I should seriously consider applying to, and I’m glad I took her advice!
Tell us about your piece that will be performed at MICF. What should we listen for?
This piece has been through a lot of changes. My initial inspiration came from the opportunity to write for drum kit. I’d never done that in a contemporary classical context before, and I was interested in bringing together aspects of my past work in jazz and hip-hop with my current compositional language. The intersection between jazz and hip-hop had become a kind of second home for me after I stepped away from classical music. At the heart of that scene was a venue called the Bluewhale, a beloved spot in LA’s Little Tokyo. I was deeply inspired by the artists who performed there, and heartbroken when it closed during the pandemic. Thankfully, they’ve found a new location and plan to reopen soon, and I have no doubt that the magic will come back. On the ceiling of the old venue was a Rumi poem, painted around the lights and acoustic treatment; it is from this poem that I borrow my piece’s title, As Brightness Is To Time.
That initial idea evolved quite a bit, especially after the wildfires in Los Angeles. I was lucky to be safe, but many people I care about were affected, and a lot of places we all cared about were left unrecognizable. The piece started to shift in response to that. I ended up rewriting huge sections to reflect how my ideas about the piece’s narrative had changed. I always revise heavily, but this time I discarded almost as much as I kept. There are around seven minutes of music that didn’t make it into the final eight-minute piece.
Ironically, most of what got cut was the drum set material; what’s left are a few cymbal gestures. But jazz is still in the bones of the piece, especially in the harmonic language and certain melodic sensibilities. There are moments that even lean toward a kind of film noir aesthetic.
Ultimately, the piece became about how great concerts and the wilderness have a commonality in my mind: they’re both transformative spaces, and they’re both potentially vulnerable. To that end, there’s also a depiction of nature in the piece, but with a bit of a twist. In a piece that, for me, was fundamentally about attention and change, I wanted to avoid direct sonic depictions of “nature sounds.” For example, instead of birdsong, I use gestures that recall wind chimes, drawing attention to the substrate through which a bird flies, just as silence or ambient noise in a concert hall forms the substrate through which music moves.
What does it mean for you to work with an ensemble like Alarm Will Sound?
It’s honestly a bit surreal. I’ve been listening to their records since 2005 or 2006 when I discovered Acoustica;I was a big Aphex Twin fan in high school. Their Steve Reich recordings were among my first exposures to music by living composers outside of film, TV, and video games. Getting the chance to work with them now is definitely a full-circle moment. I have a huge amount of respect and admiration for them, and the music they’ve released over the years has had a real impact on my own.
What do you hope to learn from your MICF experience?
I haven’t had many opportunities to work closely with performers who specialize in contemporary music, so I’ll be paying close attention to how they communicate during rehearsals and how they work with me and the other composers. I’m especially excited to work with Hilda Paredes and Judd Greenstein. I admire both of their artistic voices and their work in advancing such a wide range of new music. I’m also really looking forward to meeting the other resident composers, hearing their pieces, and learning about how they’ve developed their artistic and professional lives. I’m always curious about new perspectives – on my own music and on music more broadly – and I have the feeling that what I take away from this experience will stay with me for a long time. I still feel like a beginner in many ways, and it means everything to be given an opportunity like this.
For more information on Matt Smith, visit his website.