Biography

Isaac Smith is a composer and performer of bright, engaging, thoughtful new music. His works for winds and brass have contributed to the existing repertoire of both chamber groups and large wind ensembles, and he has performed in the premieres of dozens of new works as a tubist, trombonist, pianist and conductor.

Isaac was born in 1991 in Sacramento, California. He was educated at California State University, Sacramento (2008-2012), Trossingen Hochschule für Musik (2012-2013), and received his Master's in Music Composition from the University of Oregon (2017-2019). He is currently pursuing a Doctorate of Music in Composition with minor fields in Computer Music and Music Theory at Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana.

He has collaborated with many contemporary performers and ensembles, including soloists such as Roomful of Teeth soprano Estelí Gomez, tubist Alexis True, hornist Kennedy Youmans and bassist Bryce Holmes, chamber groups including Sound of Late, Chyornii & Dorado, Emergency Stopping Only and Teen Angst, and large ensembles such as COCO (Composers of Oregon Chamber Orchestra), the Sierra Nevada Winds, and the Ophir Prison Marching Kazoo Band & Temperance Society, Ltd.

As a member of the new music community, he has helped organize and administrate numerous festivals and events, including the Music Today Festival, the Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium, the Symphony of 1,000, and Kids Compose.

He is an active performer of both new and classical music, having held tuba positions in multiple professional brass quintets, as well as performing with the UO Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble "Teuph", the trombone quartet "Bones of the Apocalypse", and the Grand Isle Fire Brigade, a German oompah and second-line band.

He is also a professional choral, vocal, and instrumental accompanist. He was the founding accompanist of the aging adult choir "Singers with Hart". He has worked as an accompanist with professional groups such as Chalice, Samantics, and the Sacramento Light Opera Theatre, as well as numerous academic choral groups in multiple states. In 2012, he performed as an accompanist for members of the trombone studio of Trossingen Hochschule für Musik, in Baden-Württenberg, Germany.

In addition to his contributions to the world of new music composition and performance, Isaac is also an accomplished educator. For more than ten years, he has taught piano (both classical and jazz), trombone, tuba, and composition privately to a successful studio of young musicians. He was also a Graduate Teaching Fellow at the University of Oregon, where he managed the Oregon Composers Forum and designed and taught an intensive advanced engraving seminar to the undergraduate composers at the university. He currently serves as an Associate Instructor of Music Theory at the Jacobs School of Music.

Isaac resides in Bloomintgon, Indiana with his wife Pa Foua and several well-loved house plants.