Andrew Smith - violin
Erika Schroth - piano
Andrea Mills - cello
Andrew Smith - Violin
Andrew Smith studied at the Royal Academy of Music, UK where his teachers included Erich Gruenberg, OBE and Emanuel Hurwitz, CBE. Upon graduating with honors he was awarded the Farjeon Prize and granted a position on the Advanced Solo Studies course. He went on to his Doctorate in Performance at the Hartt School studying with Ida Kavafian and worked as Assistant to the five times Grammy winning Emerson String Quartet. In 1992 he was appointed Concertmaster of the Orquestra da Norte, Portugal and in the same year he made his London debut at the South Bank Centre. He subsequently held positions as Concertmaster of the European Chamber Opera and the Heart of England Opera and as Associate Concertmaster of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, UK. He has played as Concertmaster of numerous orchestras in Europe and the US and worked as a freelance violinist with the London Pops, the English Festival Orchestra, Moscow City Ballet and the National Symphony Orchestra, UK. As a concertmaster and orchestral musician he has been fortunate to work with such eminent conductors as Sir Colin Davis, Vaclav Neumann, Sir Simon Rattle, Helmut Rilling, and Gunther Schuller.
As a soloist Andrew has performed with orchestras in England, Portugal, Italy, China and the United States, appearing in television and radio broadcasts and on video. His most recent concerto appearances include concerts in Chicago, Indianapolis, Northwest Indiana and Southwest Michigan and a recent broadcast for Chicago Public Radio from Symphony Hall. He has appeared at such venues as the British Embassy in Paris, St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, the British Music Information Centre, London and Chicago's own Symphony Hall. As a guest artist he has appeared in concert for the American Liszt Society, the US Coast Guard, and Artists Against Aids. His recording of the Glazunow Concerto was recently released on the VUCA label of Valparaiso University.
Andrew has a keen interest in contemporary music having performed with such groups as Double Image, The Hawksmoor Music Project, and London Musici, at the 1996 Edinburgh International Festival. He was a founding member of the new music group the Rubicon Ensemble and served as its Artistic Director between 1990 and 1995. In 1999 he was invited to become director of The Copland Century, a Connecticut based Arts festival celebrating the birth of Aaron Copland. In 2000 Andrew was appointed Assitant Professor of Music at Valparaiso University, where he currently teaches violin, viola and runs the chamber music program
Andrew recieves UK representation from Chameleon Arts Amanagement, UK