Biography
Steven Herbert Smith, professor emeritus of piano at Penn State, has appeared in concerts on four continents, and has recorded solo recitals for the French, German and Spanish national radios, Radio 4 Hong Kong, and America’s PBS Television. His recent projects include a comprehensive, acclaimed series of Beethoven recitals and compact discs called Piano Masterworks of Beethoven (released on Soundwaves and reviewed with superlatives by Alan Becker in the American Record Guide), including all the 32 Sonatas and many other beloved works of the Beethoven repertoire. Other recent performances include Beethoven presentations and master classes in Beijing and Zhengzhou, China. He performed a lecture-recital at the London International Piano Symposium, 2015. His critically acclaimed recitals included Piano Entente, a series of recent-music programs presented in New York and London. Other workshops included lecture recitals on the topics of technical and musical teachings of Tobias Matthay. Recently (2022–24) he served as president of the American Matthay Association for Piano. He was the winner of teaching awards from the Pennsylvania Music Teachers Association and from Penn State’s College of Arts and Architecture. Honors won by his Penn State students included the Fulbright Scholarship for study in Austria, the Clara Wells Award of the American Matthay Association, and five state-level winners in the national competitions of Music Teachers’ National Association. He has been a frequent concerto soloist with regional orchestras including the Penn State Philharmonic, the Nittany Valley Symphony, and the Music at Penn’s Woods Festival Orchestra.
More than 80 of Steven Herbert Smith’s performances are available on YouTube, @stevenherbertsmith7827