Album Notes

Michael Kent Smith is a graduate of Elmhurst College, a composer who uses modern as well as traditional and folk instruments, performing on them and taping the various strands together into vivid, delightful music. Smith has toured Europe and Mexico. He performs frequently around the United States with concerts at such notable venues as the Kennedy Center and the Chicago Cultural Center. He 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 has released two CDs, "After the Harvest" in 2002 and "Beauty Without Warning" in 2005.