The Gregg Smith Singers is a mixed chorus from the United States, directed by Gregg Smith (b. August 21, 1931 in Chicago, Illinois). The group, which comprises 16 singers, was founded at an all-Japanese Methodist church in West Los Angeles, California

West Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California

West Los Angeles is a district in Los Angeles, California, within a larger region known as the "Westside."-Geography and transportation:...

 in 1955, while Smith was studying for his master's degree in music at the University of California, Los Angeles

University of California, Los Angeles

The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...

. The group moved to New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 in 1970.

The group's repertoire ranges from the colonial-era

Thirteen Colonies

The Thirteen Colonies were English and later British colonies established on the Atlantic coast of North America between 1607 and 1733. They declared their independence in the American Revolution and formed the United States of America...

 American compositions of William Billings

William Billings

William Billings was an American choral composer, and is widely regarded as the father of American choral music...

 to contemporary works by Morton Feldman

Morton Feldman

Morton Feldman was an American composer, born in New York City.A major figure in 20th century music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School of composers also including John Cage, Christian Wolff, and Earle Brown...

 as well as many works by Smith himself. They have also performed works by William Duckworth, Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...

, Elliott Carter

Elliott Carter

Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...

, Charles Ives

Charles Ives

Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...

, Edwin London, Blas Galindo

Blas Galindo

-Biography:Born in San Gabriel, Jalisco, Galindo studied intermittently from 1931 to 1944 at the National Conservatory in Mexico City, under Carlos Chávez, Candelario Huizar, José Rolón, and Manuel Rodríguez Vizcarra...

, Jorge Córdoba, Harold Blumenfeld, Irving Fine

Irving Fine

Irving Gifford Fine was an American composer. Fine's work assimilated neo-classical, romantic and, later, serial elements...

, Morton Gould

Morton Gould

Morton Gould was an American composer, conductor, arranger, and pianist.Born in Richmond Hill, New York, Gould was recognized early as a child prodigy with abilities in improvisation and composition. His first composition was published at age six...

, William Schuman

William Schuman

William Howard Schuman was an American composer and music administrator.-Life:Born in Manhattan in New York City to Samuel and Rachel Schuman, Schuman was named after the twenty-seventh U.S. president, William Howard Taft, although his family preferred to call him Bill...

, Louise Talma

Louise Talma

Louise Talma was a composer. She was raised in New York City and studied at the Institute of Musical Arts , 1922–1930, and received her bachelor of music degree from New York University and masters of arts degree from Columbia University...

, Arthur Sullivan

Arthur Sullivan

Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...

 and Ned Rorem

Ned Rorem

Ned Rorem is a Pulitzer prize-winning American composer and diarist. He is best known and most praised for his song settings.-Life:...

, as well as early music by composers such as Giovanni Gabrieli

Giovanni Gabrieli

Giovanni Gabrieli was an Italian composer and organist. He was one of the most influential musicians of his time, and represents the culmination of the style of the Venetian School, at the time of the shift from Renaissance to Baroque idioms.-Biography:Gabrieli was born in Venice...

 and Heinrich Schütz

Heinrich Schütz

Heinrich Schütz was a German composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach and often considered to be one of the most important composers of the 17th century along with Claudio Monteverdi...

.

The Gregg Smith Singers have toured the United States 40 times, in addition to 16 tours of Europe, and three visits to Asia. It has recorded over 100 albums, on the Albany

Albany Records

Albany Records is an American classical music record label focusing particularly on contemporary classical music. It was established by Peter Kermani in 1987, and is based in Albany, New York.-External links:**...

, Columbia

Columbia Records

Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

, Cp2, CRI

Composers Recordings, Inc.

Composers Recordings, Inc. was an American record label dedicated to the recording of contemporary classical music by American composers. It was founded in 1954 by Otto Luening, Douglas Moore, and Oliver Daniel, and based in New York City....

, Koch International Classics

Koch Records

E1 Music , the primary subsidiary of E1 Entertainment LP, is the largest independent record label in the United States. It is also distributed by the Universal Music Group in Europe under the name E1 Universal...

, Lovely Music

Lovely Music

Lovely Music is an American record label devoted to new American music. Based in New York City, the label was founded in 1978 by Mimi Johnson, an outgrowth of her nonprofit production company Performing Artservices, Inc...

, New World

New World Records

New World Records is a record label based in New York City specialising in American music. The label was established in 1975 through a Rockefeller Foundation grant to produce a 100 disc anthology covering 200 years of American music....

, Newport Classic, Sony, and Vox

Vox Records

VOX Records is a budget classical record label. The name is Latin for "voice."-History:Vox was founded in 1945, starting out with 78-rpm discs, specializing in licensed pressings of classical recordings made in Europe. It was one of the last major recording companies to adopt stereo recording,...

 labels.

The Gregg Smith Singers have performed with numerous orchestras and worked with Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

 for 12 years beginning in 1959, until the composer's death in 1971. The group has received three Grammy Award

Grammy Award

A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

s.

External links

• Gregg Smith Singers official site
• [ All-Music Guide entry for Gregg Smith Singers]
• [ All-Music Guide entry for Gregg Smith]
• Gregg Smith Singers page
• Gregg Smith Singers information
• "Atonal Choir", from Time magazine, 1961
• Autobiographical sketch by Gregg Smith