Charles Smith

Charles Joseph Smith was born and raised in Chicago, IL. He earned a BM in Piano degree at Roosevelt University-Chicago (1994, cum laude), and earned MM and DMA in Piano degrees at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1995, and 2002). He started composing music at age 10, and started playing piano at age 8. Several of his piano teachers include Sophia Zukerman, Emilio del Rosario, Pawel Checinski, William Heiles, Gustavo Romero, and Timothy Ehlen. His composition teachers included Charlotte Lehnhoff, Don Malone, and Roberto Lombardo.

As a high school student, Charles was a frequently awarded musician. For instance, in 1984, he won first place in the CAMTA (Chicago Area Music Teachers Association) piano contest. In 1986, he earned a $300 scholarship from The Youth in the Performing Arts. He received the Zoltán Kodály Academy and Institute Honorary Award in 1987 at the Three Arts Club in Chicago--one of the youngest musicians to ever receive the award. In 1987, he won first place in the Society of American Musicians (SAM) competition at Roosevelt University, in Chicago. In the same year, he won first place in the Classical Music and Composition categories in the ACT-SO competition in Chicago (The acronym means African-American Cultural, Technological, and Scientific Olympics, which was founded by Vernon Jarrett.) He then represented ACT-SO in the national Competition in Washington D.C. and won second place in Classical Music. In 1989, he took first place in the local competition in the same categories and represented ACT-SO in the National Competition in Detroit, Michigan. In 1990, he won the ACT-SO First Place Award in Musical Composition at the local level, and represented ACT-SO in the national competition in Los Angeles. During the summers of 1985-1989, he attended music camps at Illinois State University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Chapman College in Orange County,California. He also attended a Summer Piano Workshop at Oberlin College in Ohio in 1993. Charles also competed in the Chicago Park District Talent Search, where he became one of the finalists, performing a piano selection at the Petrillo Music Shell for the first time. He also competed in the Nathaniel Dett Club music competitions (sponsored by The National Association of Negro Musicians, or NANM) in 1990, where he won the local competition and won second place in the piano category at the national competition in Columbus, Ohio. In addition, he won the local competition again in 1991 and represented NANM in the national competition in Newark, New Jersey.

He started his undergraduate studies at Roosevelt University on a 4-year partial scholarship. While at the school, Charles performed his sophomore, junior, and senior recitals in 1992, 1993, and 1994. He earned a Franklin Honor Society Award in 1994 and was placed in the Who's Who Of American Students In College and Universities from 1994-95. During that time, he was featured on a side issue of the campus' Torch newspaper with student journalist Regina Waldroup. In addition, he also was featured as a guest soloist with the South Side Family Chamber Orchestra on at least seven occasions, under conductors like Delano O'Banion and Terrance Gray. They did performances of piano concertos from Beethoven, Mozart, and Edvard Grieg. At one time, Charles and the orchestra performed outside the Daley Plaza in Chicago in July 1987. Charles developed a strong interest in opera at the university, becoming an assistant musical director for Roosevelt University's Opera Theatre in the 1993 production of The Magic Flute and the 1994 production of Carmen.

When he went to the University of Illinois campus to start his graduate piano study, his recognition spread almost rapidly. He played piano for plenty of talent shows all around campus, as well as did some accompanying work. At one time, he performed his own set of piano compositions in his own recital at 1997. Later, he was on a full front-page story in the Daily Illini on May 2000, written by Milton Carrero and photographed by Jesse Evans. He completed his doctoral work by doing an extended paper and performing in two lecture-recitals; his thesis was the Franz Liszt operatic arrangements for the piano. In February 2003, he also appeared on a side page of the same newspaper after performing in a Black History Opening Ceremony at the Illini Union at the campus, in 2003, which was televised repeatedly on the campus local channel for two weeks. He was also featured in the same year during the Culture Shock International Festival on the same campus.

In addition to his campus accomplishments, he had some success as a pianist abroad. He attended the French Piano Institute in Paris in July 2000 and won an Honorable Mention in their final recital and competition. He went to Italy in 2001 to compete in the IBLA Grand Prize International Competition in Sicily, where he won an Honorable Mention for Musicianship. In the same year, he also performed in a master class under famous Hungarian pianist Csaba Király at the International Piano Master Class in Budapest.

In February, 2006, Charles participated in the Black History Celebration concert sponsored by the Chicago Music Association, performing the complete Sonata no. 1 by living African-American composer George Walker, and also performed his operatic piano transcription "Non più andrai" from Act II of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro in honor of Mozart's 250th birthday In November 2006, he was a debut featured guest on WEFT Sessions in Champaign-Urbana, IL, and in March 2007, he was selected to do a PowerPoint presentation on Salvatore Martirano at the Society of Electroacoustic Musicians (SEAMUS) conference at Iowa State University (USA). He also went to his first post-college algorithmic composition workshop in July 2007, called the WACM (Workshop in Algorithmic Computer Music) at Santa Cruz, California, where he was able to compose at least one computer-related composition and re-train himself on some concepts involved in electoacoustic music.

Charles made his first debut appearance at the Fifth House Ensemble Open Mic in January 2008, where he performed the fourth movement of the Brahms' Piano Quintet in F minor, op. 34. In July 2008, he made a debut appearance at the Amalfi Coast Music Festival in Italy, where he was featured in a master class with Ian Hobson and two recitals, including a Young Artist Recital and a Piano Marathon Recital. After being back into the States, Charles also did two full-length piano accompanying recitals with soprano Joy Denise Moore.

In 2008, Charles got a chance to meet up with one of the greatest concert pianists---Aldo Cicollini, at an exhibition hall in Montpellier, France, where Aldo was teaching piano master classes to scores of his colleagues, through special invitation from Michele Stoehr, her former girlfriend.

In 2009, he made his newest composition debut at the Schubertiade (Schubert Party) at Chicago's Fine Arts Building, where he performed a piano transcription of Franz Schubert's "Erlkönig". During the summer of 2009, Charles was an active accompanist debuting in a major Sanctuary Choir concert at the Hartzell Church. Collaborating with bass-baritone Andrew Schultze, he also participated in an accompanying engagement on May 2009 in Joseph McKenna's original chamber composition, "The Wreck of the Deutschland. Moreover, Charles accepted another accompanying engagement at the University of Chicago in early November 2009 in Andrew Schultze's arrangement of "The Mummer's Play."

Also collaborating with Andrew Schultze, he made his debut as vocal audition accompanist in 2009 for the Italian papal opera, "La Comica del Cielo" (The Comic of the Heaven) by Antonio Maria Abbattini, which will make its American debut in early October 2009. In addition, Charles was involved as an accompanist with numerous operatic rehearsals for this opera from February to September 2009, including four vocal coaching sessions with soprano Farida Weller, who was chosen to play one of the lead characters, Baltasara, in the opera.

He also made his first professionally-recorded CD of classical piano compositions by various composers in February 2009 at the Pianoforte Chicago room in the Fine Arts Building, in downtown Chicago.

In 2010, Charles Smith made his real international debut in France again to perform in his own full-scale piano recital in Ganges, France, with the help of former assistant, Michele Stoehr, at the Albarede Theater.

Charles performed two original compositions at an open mic at Gallery Cabaret (Chicago, IL) in the month of September. 2 years later, in 2012, he was interviewed by Jason Page at the defunct Multikulti DIY Venue, where he also performed on the piano during the inteview.

In 2016, he performed in a live concert with bass-baritone Keanon Kyles at the Bestheda Missionary Baptist Church, and later on, he performed 2 original and 2 borrowed piano compositions at the Wentz Recital hall in Naperville, IL, as part of the program called ‘Documenty Hope”, which was curated by Tamara Astacio, and Lynn West. He also performed in June at two music-related events on one same day—at the Abbott House and Christ Church, both at Highland Park, IL. He also performed at the Kroc Community Center in Chicago, IL.

In 2017, Charles appeared as a debut guest of the CRIS radio show of the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind, and appeared in the same year in a second postdoctoral recital at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with the help of Linda Tortorelli, director of Autism Programs at the university. He also performed a 40-minute piano recital at the Chicago Cultural Center in his second performing appearance, since his appearance as a freeform pianist in the John Cage Musicircus at the same place in 2007.

In 2018, he appeared in his biggest gig of his life, at the Hideout Chicago, where he released his debut CD album called “War of the Martian Ghosts”, to a nearly-sold-out crowd, as the headliner of several acts at the place—the first time he had been headliner at any Chicago venue at the DIY-music level.

In 2019, Charles made his debut gig as a guest church musican at Downs Memorial Church in Oakland, CA, on one Sunday in February. He also made his debut as music judge in the April 2019 Local ACT-SO Competition at Kennedy-King College, and in the same month, he held another piano recital in his debut appearance at the Mount Prospect Public Library. Later on, performed in a paid gig at Il Vicinato Restaurant in late June for a fundraiser event, and finally, collaborated with musician Angel Bat Dawid, in a freeform concert at Elastic Arts Foundation in October, 2019.

And even as the COVID-19 Virus pandemic in 2020 put a quash to most in-person cultural activities, including music and composition, Charles continued to shine nevertheless. He earned a $500 Resilience Grant from the Elastic Arts Foundation for his heavy contributions with this contemporary venue, and also earned another temporary grant with the JW Pepper’s MyScore Program. He also completed two major virtual music projects in the fall of 2020—a virtual recital of original compositions at the Pianoforte Chicago on the near South Side, and a Zoom presentation on the “Ode To Joy” choral finale movement of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony through Lucky Pierre Free Online University, under curator Jeff Kowalkowski.

As the pandemic lingered into 2021, Charles performed in his first major alumnus recital in-person at Roosevelt University’s Ganz Hall, his first alma mater, but virtually. His program included the Franz Liszt’s “Pest” Hungarian Rhapsody no. 9 in Eb Major.

In May 2022, Charles was invited to be a guest in the “Music Therapy” podcast with DIY musician Jessica Risker. In August 2022, he was invited to do a creative jazz event with Angel Bat Dawid’s new ensemble at Sleeping Village in his debut.

He composed over 600 compositions, most of them for piano. He is now into composing original avant-garde compositions as well as traditional compositions. He appeared two times in the Chicago version of the John Cage Musicircus (in 2005 and in 2007), doing a mixture of experimental piano performing and performance art dancing. He also had his electroacoustic composition, "Synth vs. Synth", featured in a debut at the Electronic Music Midwest conference at the Kansas City Kansas Community College in October 2005. Another of his compositions, the "Samba in F-sharp Minor" for one piano, four hands, had been performed over 10 times by the duo-pianists Bonnie Anderson and Donna Gross Javel of Massachusetts as part of the Anything Piano project.

He had been an active accompanist with the Hartzell United Methodist Church Sanctuary Choir, where he had even led the choir in over 100 occasions, and also active as a semi-professional accompanist with voice teacher Andrew Schultze, where Andrew, at one time, had up to 15 students per week.

Finally, Charles Smith is active as an independent performance art/contemporary dancer, often doing his own dances to some of his original compositions.

Available Areas: Central, Chicago Metro

Core Audiences: Adult, General

Contact