Stuart Smith ’63

Class: 1963

Deceased: December 8, 2012

A remembrance by Elizabeth Harvey McConaughy

Stuart Cameron Smith (5/4/41-12/8/12) went to Carleton from Columbia Falls, Montana—he was a city boy from a small rural town. After leaving Carleton in the fall of his sophomore year, he went to San Francisco and took classes at San Francisco State College, then transferred to the University of Southern California where he got his BA and MA in Piano Studies and Accompaniment. He taught at Stephens College, Missouri, teaching music and voice.

In 1974 he emigrated to England and was hired to teach music at Sidney Stringer Community School Coventry, where among other achievements he directed “West Side Story” using students from different ethnic backgrounds as members of the opposing gangs. He started The New Opera Group on the side, and began developing a network of contacts in the music community in England.

His career as a performer and teacher went from strength to strength. He taught song literature and coached singers at the Birmingham Conservatoire for over 20 years. Stuart was blessed with a phenomenal memory. His range of knowledge of song repertoire was astounding, and he also had instant recall. When he heard a voice, he could pluck a song from this vast archive to suit the singer’s temperament and ability for that stage of their development.

He was pleased that he played for Princess Anne. He accompanied violinist Michael Grübe on several European tours—they were among the first western artists to play in East Germany after the fall of the Berlin wall. He performed so frequently in broadcasts for Austrian Radio that he was awarded the title of Ständige Artist. He gave song recitals with singers in venues throughout the land, and very much enjoyed working with violinist Roger Coull on the occasions they performed together. He also taught for 17 years “The Art of Song” summer course with April Cantelo and David Jones.

He worked for many years with the Leamington Spa Competitive Festival and was their official accompanist. At one time he was the Treasurer, organizing and accompanying a recital program in the Town Hall, which filled the place and drew the Festival finances into the black for years to come. He loved the Festival movement, where people gave freely of their time to encourage the arts—singing, dancing, instrumental playing, poetry recital—for the young and not so young. Only in England, he said, would a bunch of people get together to do this. He was an adjudicator working all over Britain with the Festival Movement for 24 years, and reluctantly withdrew in April of this year because of his increasingly poor health.

He had attracted many private vocal students over the years, whom he taught at his home studio – he kept teaching until just a few weeks before his death, feeling that he couldn’t let his students down.