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Gregg Smith
I am told by various relatives that I was actually composing at the age of five. The story they tell is that when called to dinner I would always procrastinate, asking for just a few minutes more to write out some additional notes. But my real memories of myself as a composer start around the age of 17. Having heard Milhaud's Suadedos de Brazil, I wanted to write a couple of South American piano pieces of my own. The result was a suite called From the Rio. It was a very good effort for a 17 year old. Soon after, I moved to California where I enrolled at UCLA and also joined an amateur adult choir conducted by a fine high school director named Jim Burt. He was very encouraging of me as a composer, trying out a few things of mine with his adult choir and then performing two Keats settings with his High School group. It was my first real public performance. Media Articles |
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Songbooks, Arrangements and/or Media
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Gregg Smith : Doo-Wop Madrigals The whole Doo-Wop Madrigal project started with Garrison Keillor who called to invite the Gregg Smith Singers to appear on his American Radio Company program. He was, he said, particularly interested in some "Doo-Wop" Billings -- William Billings, that is, the great American composer from the Revolutionary War era. By the next conversation, the concept had metamorphosed into "Doo-Wop Madrigals", that is, taking standard Madrigal literature and giving it new life by creating jazz interpreations which still retain all the essential musical elements which made them such great musical masterpieces in the first place. Madrigals are fun to sing, but the Jazz approach adds entirely new dimensions to some very familiar ground. While word painting is a vital element in Renaissance choral music, the substitution of scat sounds for words and the addition of vocalized percussion highlights the sometimes subtle rhythmic and contrapuntal aspects of the works, bringing a different kind of clarity to the music itself. Finally, the blues treatments added a new poignancy to the more solemn works. Songlist: Cool April (April is in my Mistress' face), Billings in Blue (When Jesus Wept), He's Awesome (Il est bel et bon), The Revecy Band (Revecy venir du printans), Oh! That Love and Beauty (When Love and Beauty), Multiple Echoes (Echo Song), My heart is longing for your love (mon coeur se recommande a vous), Hey, Babe! (Matona, mia cara) 
Gregg Smith : Christmas Time Gregg Smith, a choral conductor and composer whose ensemble, the Gregg Smith Singers, established new standards for professional choral singing and championed the work of contemporary American composers in performance and on recordings. Here is a collection of his arrangements for Christmas. Songlist: Christmas Time Book 1, Christmas Time Book 2 |
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(choral score has keyboard reduction - piano 4-hands) No. 1 from A Mary Trilogy. Quietly, reverently, this setting of the classic Ave Maria text is inspired in its gentle vocal writing combined with a beautiful flugelhorn solo. No full score is available.
Duration 4:30
Selected by the National Endowment for the Arts as an one of the American Masterpieces of choral music.
Performed By: Gregg Smith Singers
These 16 Concert Rounds are a perfect addition to the concert repertoire of advanced children's choirs, middle and high school choirs, college choirs and adult community choirs. In true Gregg Smith fashion, they are filled with sharp dynamic contgrasts, hormonic layering and rhythmic srprises ringing through tongue-in-cheek settings of old sayings. Performance suggestions are included for each round. Contents: 1. Birds of a Feather 2. Don't Counmt Your Chickens 3. Big Oaks! 4. It's All Water 5. The Oak and the Ash 6. A Rolling Stone 7. If You Can't Say Anything Nice 8. A Penny Saved 9. The Grass is Greener 10. A Bird in the Hand 11. Too Many Cooks 12. It's Six of One 13. Give 'em and Inch 14. If At first 15. Two's Company 16. Every Dog
Duration Various - 16 different rounds
Set for double choir, this work is wonderful for the larger high school or community choir. German and English texts.
Composer: Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
Commissioned for the 1993 Children's Choral Festival at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, Barbara Tagg, artistic director.
Includes:
1. In Praise of Christmas
2. Green Grows the Holly
3. On Christmas Eve the Bells Were Rung.
Percussion includes Glock & Chimes (or 5 octave Handbells), Celeste. Duration 5:00
Performed By: Gregg Smith Singers
O Magnum Mysterium is one of the greatest texts for choral music from the Renais-sance to the present day but has some variations used by composers from Victoria to Poulenc. Gregg has chosen the version of the text that includes Dominum Jesum Christum and includes a final Alleluia instead of Amen. The image of the oxen and donkey next to the crib is found in Isaiah and is traditionally related to the nativity scene at the birth of Jesus in Luke 2. The image continued to spread from the 13th century onwards becoming the most popular symbol for the mystery. The second part of the responsory relates to the words with which Elizabeth welcomes Mary, mother of Jesus on her visitation. Gregg uses a mixture of notation styles in this piece with dissonant harmonies and instances of polytonal chords with a challenging piano part. The entire piece is based on the O Magnum Mysterium of Tomas Luis de Victoria. There is a wonderful "insider joke" on page 16 in the piano part at the beginnin
This "O, What a Beautiful City" arrangement was originally written when the Gregg Smith Singers was doing a lot of work in the NYC schools for Arts Connection. In the beginning performances the school children sang the melody while GSS sang the harmonic parts. Flexibility is encouraged, especially when working with diverse forces. Featuring the children's voices and the soprano solo is paramount; however, if no children's chorus is available, it is perfectly acceptable to use all SATB voicing. Part of the Gregg Smith Folksong Series.
The imagery of the spinning dreidle is aptly portrayed in the agile accompaniment while the voices sing the familiar folk melody in Hebrew or English. Ideal for 2-Part treble or mixed voices. Available: 2-Part only.
Performed By: Gregg Smith Singers
Commissioned for the 1994 New York Choral Festival. It is the first movement of a Choral symphony for young performers on Whitman texts. The entire cycle is comprised of Two Whitman Songs, On the Beach at Night and I Hear America Singing.
Choral legend Greg Smith wrote his contemporary opera Rip Van Winkle for SATB choir with a Unison line for a children's chorus. Premiering in 1990, it has gone on to garner acclaim and numerous performances across the country. Welcome Home is a magical text which eases through it's 6/8 setting with an aural wonderment befitting the title character.
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