Artists

Biography:

CRAIG SMITH (1947 – 2007) was both founder and artistic director of Emmanuel Music. For 37 years, Mr. Smith conducted a cantata of J.S. Bach each week as part of the Sunday worship service at Boston’s Emmanuel Church, where Emmanuel Music is the Ensemble-in-Residence. As artistic director, Mr. Smith presided over a popular and critically acclaimed concert series which included the Passions, Christmas Oratorio, and B minor Mass of Bach; Mozart and Handel operas; major symphonic works; chamber series surveying the complete vocal, piano and chamber works of great composers including Brahms, Schubert, and Schumann; and world premieres and commissions by composer John Harbison. Mr. Smith collaborated with stage director Peter Sellars in opera productions presented in the USA at Pepsico Summerfare, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Chicago Lyric Opera, the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, the American Repertory Theatre, and the Opera Company of Boston. Their productions of the three Mozart/da Ponte operas, Cosi fan tutte, Le Nozze di Figaro, and Don Giovanni were premiered at Pepsico Summerfare, later performed throughout the U.S. and Europe, filmed with the Vienna Symphony for European and American television, and later recorded on video compact disc for Decca Records. The Smith-Sellars collaboration on Bach Cantatas (BWV 199 and 82), with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, was presented in Boston, New York City, Paris, Amsterdam, London, Vienna, and Lucerne, and has been released to critical acclaim on Nonesuch Records. As the Permanent Guest Conductor of the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, Mr. Smith collaborated with choreographer Mark Morris for two seasons from 1988-91, and toured with these productions to Boston, Minneapolis, New York City’s Lincoln Center, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Holland, Israel, and New Zealand. He conducted the Vienna Symphony, the Dresden Staatskapelle, the Northern Sinfonia, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. Mr. Smith made his Houston Grand Opera debut conducting a production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare directed by Nicholas Hytner. Mr. Smith’s work with Emmanuel Music has been the subject of numerous radio and television specials including National Public Radio’s Performance Today and CBS Sunday Morning. With Emmanuel Music, he recorded three highly acclaimed CDs of a cappella music by Heinrich Schütz, works by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Harbison (now acting artistic director of Emmanuel Music), and works of J.S. Bach. Mr. Smith taught at Juilliard, MIT, New England Conservatory, and Boston University. He presented summer Bach Institutes at Tanglewood and Songfest.