The American flutist Joshua Smith, a native of Albuquerque, New Mexico, began his flute training with Frank Bowen before studying with Julius Baker and Jeffrey Khaner at the Curtis Institute of Music. In 1988 and 1989 he took part in the Blossom Festival School, which is operated by the Cleveland Orchestra. This resulted soon thereafter, in 1990, in the 20-year-old Smith’s appointment to the Orchestra as principal flute. Since then Smith has performed as the soloist in numerous flute concerti with the Cleveland Orchestra, including those by Mozart, Nielsen, Penderecki, and Takemitsu. Jörg Widmann composed his new work Flûte en suite in 2011 with Smith’s playing in mind. Alongside his orchestral activities, Smith is also intensively devoted to chamber music: for example, he is a member of the Musicians of Marlboro and collaborates with the Guarneri and Brentano Quartets and with such pianists as Mitsuko Uchida, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, and Jonathan Biss. As the Cleveland Museum of Art’s music consultant, he conceived a chamber music series to accompany the exhibition Monet in Normandy. Smith has also been involved in similar multidisciplinary projects at the Pensacola Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami. Together with the actress Laura Perrotta, he has designed a program in which flute fantasias by Telemann are paired with Shakespeare sonnets. Joshua Smith is the director of the Ensemble HD, which consists of members of the Cleveland Orchestra and special guests and which performs primarily in nontraditional venues. He serves as a professor at the Cleveland Institute of Music and heads the woodwinds at the Blossom Festival School.
August 2014