Andrew Smith

Andrew Smith

Andrew Smith is a British-Norwegian composer of choral and vocal music, and a musician associated with french horn. His work combines older vocal traditions with a contemporary harmonic language, often drawing on medieval textures, chant, cluster chords and chromatic or dissonant colouring. He is also one of several artists who use the name Andrew Smith, including a separate Chicago-area musician who plays in indie and electronic projects.

Composer

Smith reads music and English at the University of Oslo. He begins composing as a hobby at the age of eight, but his work develops more seriously in the late 1990s when he writes a piece for the newly formed Norwegian ensemble Trio Mediaeval. Recording with Trio Mediaeval brings his music to wider attention in the United States and leads to further work with American groups, including New York Polyphony and The Girl Choristers of Washington National Cathedral.

His pieces for New York Polyphony contribute to two recordings that receive Grammy nominations. In 2015 he is commissioned by the English early music ensemble Gothic Voices, for whom he writes a setting of “Stond wel, Moder, under rode”. Writers have noted the way his music responds to older material while using a different harmonic language.

Smith also writes “Requiem” for the Nidaros Girls’ Choir in response to the events in Norway in July 2011. The work premieres in Trondheim in 2012 and is later performed on a three-stop UK tour in 2013 with Wells Cathedral School Choralia, conducted by Christopher Finch, alongside Norwegian jazz musicians Arve Henriksen on trumpet and Ståle Storløkken on keyboards.

Performances and commissions

Smith is commissioned and performed by a number of Norwegian choirs, including the Norwegian Girls Choir and Oslo Cathedral Choir. The Oslo Cathedral Choir performs a specially commissioned piece in a nationally televised church service on 29 August 2018 to mark the golden wedding anniversary of the king and queen of Norway.

Other musician of the same name

Another Andrew Smith is a musician formerly involved with the Chicago-area band For All The Drifters and the Topeka, Kansas-based indie rock band The Billions. He also works with the Nashville electronic group Paper Route, leaving after the release of Absence, and releases a solo EP titled Chicago Rules EP. He later writes and records with Brian Lee, also known for Brian Lee and His Orchestra.