Michael Kent Smith is a composer and guitarist who uses modern guitars as well as traditional and folk instruments, performing on them and taping the various strands together into vivid, delightful music that is a blend of jazz, folk, Latin, Spanish and classical.
Smith has toured Europe, Mexico and Africa and performs regularly around the United States with concerts at such notable venues as the Kennedy Center and the Chicago Cultural Center. Internationally he has performed in the International Festival of World Music in Mexico City and the International Guitar Festival in Zihuatanejo as well as the festival Tom Sank in Paris, Rome and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
He is a graduate of Elmhurst College and has studied classical guitar with Paul Herrmann, fingerstyle guitar with Martin Simpson and Edward Gehard, jazz with Richard Medel, composition with Howard Krueger and flamenco with Manuel Lozano in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain. He was the principal composer in Pong Unit, the ensemble fronted by poet Marc Smith, inventor of the Poetry Slam. In addition Smith has won the Outstanding Soloist award at the prestigious Midwest Jazz festival and was voted Chicago’s Best Guitarist in 1989.
He released the solo CD “After the Harvest” in 2002 and a trio CD “Beauty Without Warning” in 2005. He has also appeared as guitarist on CDs by a number artists including Marc Smith, Steven Hashimoto, Joe Hasiewicz and Al Rose
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