Baltimore Social Innovation Journal, Fall 2016 Fall 2016 | Page 27

considers himself a late bloomer. Though
his father was a church choir director and
his mother a pianist, he says he was “more
Frasier and my parents more Martin,” a
reference to the 1990s sitcom “Frasier” that
featured a sophisticated leading man and
his more down-to-earth father.
“I had a middle-class upbringing,”
says Smith, who’s from Dallas, Texas. “My
parents weren’t really into classical music.
I learned about it on my own. It was just
part of the fabric of growing up, along
with hanging out with friends, eating
hamburgers, watching cable TV, and getting
a girl’s phone number. Classical music
reached me and had things to say to me. So
I think it can reach other people as well.”
Symphony Number One plays the
standard repertory – Beethoven, Brahms,

Schubert, Mahler – but also commissions
new works from contemporary composers.
And the group is always looking for ways
to incorporate technology into its work,
whether it’s livestreaming concerts or
translating foreign language song texts on
its website.
“We have to be citizens of this city,”
Smith says. “We have to acknowledge
our position. How do we break into the
red lines that have been drawn around
neighborhoods? How can we converse with
people? We do it through music.”
B A LTI M OR E SOC I A L I N N O VAT I O N JO U R N A L