Gregg Smith Singers

The Gregg Smith Singers rank among the foremost small vocal ensembles worldwide, especially those renowned for 20th-century repertoire. Gregg Smith established the group while serving as an assistant in the UCLA Department of Music. Their initial foray onto the global stage occurred in 1958, followed by a performance at the Brussels World's Fair. Igor Stravinsky soon singled them out as his preferred vocal ensemble for a landmark series of Columbia recordings, an affiliation that lasted twelve years and ended with the composer's death in 1971. Smith himself led the chorus and orchestra at Stravinsky's funeral rites in Venice.

A second European tour took place in 1971; by the close of the century the ensemble had completed thirty-four such journeys. New York City has served as their home base since 1973, and they appear each year at the Adirondack Musical Festival on Lake Saranac while also leading the North Country Choral Workshop at Saranac Lake for high-school participants, a program completed by more than one thousand students. During the 1980s the Singers became linked with New York City's "Art Connection" series.

Their recording career, which predates the Stravinsky projects with an earlier Verve jazz release, has encompassed Vox, Everest, CRI, Lovely Music, and additional labels. Over time they have collaborated in both live performances and studio work with conductors including Bernstein, Stokowski, and Ormandy. American music constitutes seventy percent of their repertory, spanning Stephen Foster, Victor Herbert, Ives, Copland, and William Schuman through late-20th-century figures such as Roger Reynolds, Jacob Druckman, Elliott Carter, Ned Rorem, and Louise Talma. The Ditson Conductor's Prize for contributions to American music arrived in 1978, followed in 1988 by the Berliasky Prize from the American Academy in Rome. Three Grammy awards recognized The Glory of Gabrieli, New Music of Charles Ives, and the further Ives collection General Booth Enters into Heaven.