Ronald Bruce Smith is a Canadian composer whose works incorporate acoustic instruments and electronics Many of SmithÕs works share a contemplative character, a preoccupation with enhancing the resonance of a given ensemble, and an openness to new sound sources (including non-Western ones). For example, his Kyrie Eleison combines a soprano soloist, orchestra and live electronics in a 'quiet plea for mercy as well as a static prayer for spiritual reflection'; intended as a memorial for the fourteen students murdered at the University of Montreal in December 1989. In Meditations, based on research begun at IRCAM and realized at Berkeley's Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT), Smith manipulates materials drawn from Pakistani vocal music and the Indonesian gamelan (percussion orchestra). His interest in timbral nuance has taken many and diverse forms. In works like 'Remembrances of a Garden' for chamber ensemble, timbral variety comes from dramatic articulations and subtle performance techniques. In his chamber work Flux, he relies on the mathematical exploration of tone color based on the imaginative manipulation of harmonic spectra from the overtone series.
SmithÕs music has been described as "fresh and lustrous" (The New York Times); "seductive and unique" (Ottawa Citizen); "filling in silences blank canvas with the delicacy of an impressionistÕs brush" (Vancouver Sun); "wonderfully evocative"; and "intriguing, lovely and seductive" (San Francisco Chronicle); "a highly charged sonic space, fresh and enigmatic" (Los Angeles Times); "sophisticated and ambitious - fascinating and satisfying" (San Francisco Classical Voice); and as "showing a remarkable sensitivity to tone colors" (Toronto Globe and Mail).
Smith has received many awards and commissions for his work including commissions funded by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and Gibson Guitars. Recent performers of his works include the Aitken/Tureski Duo, the Arraymusic Ensemble, California E.A.R. Unit, Cikada, Continuum Ensemble, Del Sol String Quartet, Earplay, Pierrot Ensemble, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Speculum Musicae, Vancouver New Music Ensemble, the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and at festivals in Europe, the Americas and Australia.
His music has been recorded to CD by Continuum, Arraymusic, the Del Sol String Quartet and the Evergreen Club Gamelan.
For more information including mp3s and pdfs please visit: http://www.ronaldbrucesmith.com