Blake Smith

Biography

Dr. D. Blake Smith, tenor, is an award-winning singer, director, teacher, and actor. He serves as Coordinator of the Voice Area for the School of Music, founding Artistic Director of University of Delaware Opera Theatre, and teaches applied voice and graduate courses in voice literature. He has performed over forty principal operatic roles ranging from Mozart to Carlisle Floyd and has garnered special attention for his interpretations of Italian bel canto repertoire, which have been called “captivatingly gorgeous," “glorious," “velvety," and “electrifyingly expressive." His celebrated career as an oratorio and concert soloist shows similar versatility, including critically-acclaimed performances in works as diverse as the Bach Evangelists and the tenor soloist in Verdi's Requiem. His operatic career has included performances in professional theaters throughout the United States and he has performed as a soloist with orchestras in many of the country's most prestigious performance halls, including Carnegie Hall, Philadelphia's Verizon Hall, and Dallas's Meyerson Symphony Center.

Dr. Smith is a passionate advocate and performer of art song and expert in the fields of voice literature and chamber music, with recent research specialization in the pedagogical utility of repertoire assignment. He has collaborated with international luminaries such as Martin Katz, Roger Vignoles, and Michael Schütze, and his doctoral research was on the vocal chamber works of British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. This led to a broader area of specialization in British vocal and chamber music, most notably those of Benjamin Britten, and further interest in expatriate composers. Dr. Smith has an abiding love and respect for the deep well of literary and musical influences which birthed the western art song tradition, but a strong ethical desire to balance the value of that tradition with the continued decolonization of the operatic stage, recital and concert hall, and music classroom. To this end, he has developed and taught graduate opera and song literature courses which seek to contextualize the many systemic injustices of those traditions while notably amplifying the works of composers whose voices have been excluded or silenced.

The development and expansion of operatic and musical theatre opportunities has been, perhaps, Dr. Smith's most profound impact on the student experience in the University of Delaware School of Music. UD Opera Theatre has become known as one of the most inventive collegiate opera companies in the United States, particularly through its OPERA:NOW program, the only collegiate contemporary chamber opera series of its kind in the country, which has produced eight world premiere works to date since 2011. UD Opera Theatre also holds the rare distinction of having travelled with multiple complete productions and received invitations to make appearances at the internationally-renowned Sewanee Music Festival, multiple National Opera Association conventions, and Mexico's El Aleph Arts Festival. Dr. Smith also served as a Guest Stage Director in the High School Voice Program for the Brevard Music Festival in 2015 and has completed opera-related residencies and workshops at several other universities.

Dr. Smith's applied voice students have been admitted into the most prestigious graduate programs in the United States (including the Eastman School of Music, Indiana University, the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, the Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, University of North Texas, the Fletcher Opera Institute at North Carolina School of the Arts, the Royal College of Music, London, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, University of Illinois, New England Conservatory, University of Colorado, and Florida State University) and frequently participate in some of the most well-respected summer voice programs in the world (including Santa Fe Opera, Ravinia Festival, Janiec Opera at the Brevard Music Center, Glimmerglass Festival, Young Artist Vocal Academy at the Houston Grand Opera, Chautauqua Institution, Central City Opera, Utah Festival Opera, CoOPERAtive Program at Westminster Choir College, Harrower Summer Opera Workshop, Opera Works, Musiktheater Bavaria, and SongFest, among many others). Graduates of his studio and the opera company have been seen on the stages of many opera companies (including the Metropolitan Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Santa Fe Opera, Bergen National Opera of Norway, Opera San Jose, Virginia Opera, Indianapolis Opera, Dayton Opera, Annapolis Opera, Skylark Opera, Opera Southwest, OperaDelaware, Baltimore Concert Opera, and Wilmington Concert Opera, among others), on national tours and original cast recordings of musical theater productions, and in television and feature films.

He is a profound believer in the transformative power of music, particularly when it intersects with the worlds of poetry and story. His approach to all pedagogies is informed by a focus on evidenced-based research and the holistic integration of technology but, above all, the promotion of student wellness and joy, particularly through mindfulness practices and guided reflection. He would much rather be making music, telling stories, and creating art with passionate, kind people-and sharing what they did together-than discussing his own accomplishments.

Dr. Smith is a proud first-generation college graduate from East Texas who holds MM and DMA degrees from Texas Tech University and a BM from the University of Texas at Tyler. He enjoys literature of all types (from the nostalgia of Garrison Keillor to the grit of Charles Bukowski), personal and artistic authenticity, Texas sports teams with whom he grew up (Dallas Cowboys, Texas Rangers, and all Texas Tech sports), inside jokes and anecdotes that come from UDOT productions, impactful, quality creative work in any medium (theater, vernacular music, spoken word, television, film, visual art, and dance), creating the occasional inane TikTok video, freshwater fishing, learning everything he can in his brief time on Earth, and, most importantly, being an absolutely smitten father (to Dalton) and husband (to Noël).