Office: CPMC 331
cosmythe@ucsd.edu
Pianist Cory Smythe has worked closely with pioneering artists in new, improvisatory, and classical music, including multi-instrumentalist-composer Tyshawn Sorey, violinist Hilary Hahn, and composers from Anthony Braxton to Zosha Di Castri. His own “perplexingly perfect” (The Wire) music “dissolves the lines between composition and improvisation with rigor” (Chicago Reader). Smythe has been featured at the Newport Jazz, Tectonics, and Darmstadt festivals, as well as at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart festival, where he premiered new work created in collaboration with Peter Evans and Craig Taborn. He has received commissions from Present Music, the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, the Wiener Festwochen, and the International Contemporary Ensemble, of which he is a longtime member. Smythe’s recent trilogy of critically acclaimed albums on the Pyroclastic label has been made with the support of a grant from The Shifting Foundation. He received a Grammy award for his work with Ms. Hahn and a 2022 Herb Alpert Award in music.