About
Learn more about the life and career of Noah Smith and the formation of Smith Music Lab.
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Noah Richardson Smith (*September 5, 1984) is a Film Composer currently residing in Boulder, Colorado as CEO of Smith Music Lab LLC. He composed music for a short film called Lil Balzac 2, that was recently released on Youtube, and he has also been hired for various promotional videos including for Planned Parenthood, Marlboro College, WKID Solutions, and DIDO Solutions. Though early in his career, he has studied with some top mentors. He graduated from the Pacific Northwest Film Scoring Program under the tutelage of renowned composer and orchestrator Hummie Mann, and later studied in Los Angeles with composer and conductor Eimear Noone.
In 2016 Smith was accepted to a top composing and conducting program called the Los Angeles Film Conducting Intensive and was able to travel to Bulgaria and study for a week with conducting expert Angel Velez and long time Hollywood orchestrator Conrad Pope. He composed an original film composition set to the visuals of the Firebird sequence of Disney’s Fantasia 2000. Smith has also participated in a number of Scoring competitions including Hans Zimmer’s Bleeding Fingers, Film Fest Gent, and the SCL Mentorship Program.
Noah Smith - Bio
Noah Richardson Smith was born in Brattleboro, Vermont in 1984. He spent his young years inside his own imagination in the world of music, Star Trek, Dungeons and Dragons, and Fantasy in general. Beginning in his teenage years, he turned to musical theater and from the age of 13-21 he acted in musicals and on the stage culminating in roles like Jean Valjean in Les Miserable, El Gallo in the Fantasticks, Hamlet, Dracula, and finally Malvolio in Twelfth Night. This pursuit of acting was one of emotional growth for Noah and, while it was fulfilling, it was also a career that always felt a bit at odds with the slightly more independent and introverted side of his personality.
Education
In his mid-twenties, following a foray into music directing and composing the soundtrack to an audiobook, Noah decided to take on a dream he had locked away since his pre-teen years: film composing. In 2011-2012 Noah attended the Pacific Northwest Film Scoring Program under the expert mentorship of Hummie Mann, a renowned film composer and orchestrator himself. During this program Noah learned the art of film composition from the ground up, with training in the use of punches and streamers, Logic Pro, Pro Tools, Digital Performer and Finale, as well as songwriting with guest lecturer Sue Ennis. He also learned how to conduct session musicians and worked with members of the Seattle Symphony on multiple occasions. This program left Noah with a breadth of work and experience that serve him to this day and it was on the back of graduating in 2012 that he moved to Los Angeles.
Los Angeles
Noah spent eight years in Los Angeles with some small film score successes and invaluable experiences as a conductor as well. He conducted the Symphony 47 community orchestra under the teachings of acclaimed conductor Eimear Noone and in 2016 he was accepted to an overseas conducting and composing program called the LAFCI (Los Angeles Film Conducting Intensive). Building up his resume of educational experiences and composing gigs, Noah decided to have a plan for a more reliable day job and earned his teaching credential in 2016. It was around this time that he met his future wife, Natasha Stavros.
Boulder - Starting a Family
Throughout the remainder of his time in LA, Noah and Natasha lived in Altadena while Noah worked a job teaching band and orchestra in Arcadia Unified School District while pursuing his composing career as well. Soon it became clear that Noah and Natasha wanted to settle down into a slower pace of life, especially with a child on the horizon.
In June of 2021 Noah moved into a new home with Natasha in Boulder, CO.
This was a strategic move for Natasha’s new job and it also put both Noah and Natasha about equal distance for each other’s large Greek families (to make travel to see relatives more workable). The move was also motivated by a desire to slow down their lives and not raise their first child in a big city. Since moving to Boulder, Noah has finished his first full length film score titled Lil Balzac 2 and has also begun formulating a meetup group for creatives in the filmmaking world based out of the Boulder/Denver area. It is his hope to bring some of that LA experience to working with talented and visionary filmmakers in Colorado and continue down a path he forged so many years ago.
Piano and Vocal Background
My background as a singer and pianist goes back to the time I was 3 and stood up in preschool class to sing the Star-Spangled Banner. Ever since I think I’ve been hooked on the endorphin rush one gets onstage while performing in front of people.
When I turned 8 I took up the piano for the first time and studied through until I was 18 at the Brattleboro Music Center in Brattleboro, Vermont. I had some great teachers during my time there on both voice and piano, but the one that has always stuck with me was my last piano teacher: a petite Korean woman named Chungyo Shin. She taught the exacting discipline it takes to really perfect a Schubert Impromptu or a Chopin Nocturne and she would not accept anything less than flawlessness from me so I learned to expect nothing less from myself.
It was a hard lesson at times, I’ll admit, but I’m glad I learned that type of discipline at a young age from an inspiring teaching like Ms. Shin. Since my time as a piano student I have played as an accompanist on a couple occasions for Cabarets, even once in LA for a Cellist named Janice Foy that I know from the Musician’s Union. I also recently taught piano lessons at a summer camp on the east coast called Frenchwoods Festival of the Performing Arts.
My singing background includes taking lessons in not only Brattleboro, Vermont, but also New York City. I studied a more Belt technique while in New York and learned some helpful breathing exercises including one that involves 2 different sized straws. During both high school and college I was cast in many leading man roles in the musicals including: Jean Valjean in Les Miserables, El Gallo in The Fantasticks, Emile in South Pacific, and Rapunzel’s Prince in Into The Woods.
I also sang with the Vassar College choir all 4 years while I was at Vassar and we toured to Italy and Germany with some of the most gorgeous music I’ve ever heard. Whether it was the elegant beauty of Tallis or Palestrina or the haunting dissonances of Eric Whitacre, my memories of singing in that choir will never leave me. I also sang challenging music like J.S Bach’s St. John Passion while with the Vassar College Madrigal singers. Singing has long been a part of my life and I hope to keep it in my life for as long as I can take a breath to move people, and most importantly, be moved by music.
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