Description
Sean MacRae Smith is a music educator, performer, and composer with a lifelong passion for small-ensemble singing. He is a proud product of public K-12 schools in Colorado, and holds a BA in Music from Pomona College. Since moving to San Diego, he has found avenues for performance through Sacra/Profana, the San Diego Symphony Festival Chorus, and as Bass Section Leader at First UMC of San Diego, but is equally comfortable singing with a jazz combo or rock band. Alongside performing and teaching, Sean enjoys composing in his spare time. His modest compositional oeuvre is rather aesthetically unfocused and alarmingly tonal, but could perhaps also be described as fiendishly quirky and rhythmically playful. He was selected as a Composition Fellow for the 2025 Premiere|Project Festival hosted by Choral Arts Initiative.
Sean’s interest in music education runs deep; during his time at Pomona, he researched and compiled a semester-long curriculum for a music pedagogy reading group. Under his leadership, the group brought together students and faculty to engage with pedagogical research, listen to guest speakers, and produce tangible deliverables to improve educational access and outcomes for students. The insights from this reading group helped to shape Sean’s dynamic, mentorship-based approach to teaching music, wherein students are encouraged to develop theory and technique fundamentals through a variety of styles. Now in his sixth year as a private instructor, he continues to refine his teaching through his work with Villa Musica.
Sean is slightly less self-assured than this bio would suggest. Sean will lie about whether he likes cats or dogs better in order to please everyone.
