Hartford, Conn., Oct. 16, 2006—Trinity College Composer-in-Residence Robert Edward Smith has been selected to receive an ASCAPlus award for 2006 – 2007. The awards are available to writer members of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) by the Society's ASCAPlus Awards Panels.  The purpose of the special awards, which have been given each year since 1960, is to reward writers whose works have a unique prestige value for which adequate compensation would not otherwise be received, and to compensate those writers whose works are performed substantially in media not surveyed by ASCAP.

Smith has composed chamber, orchestral, choral, and vocal music for ensembles of all kinds, ranging from for violin and piano to symphony orchestra. He has been composer-in-residence at Trinity College Chapel since 1979, and held the same position at St. John’s Memorial Chapel at the Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts from 2002 to 2003. He has also taught harpsichord and continuo realization at the University of Hartford since 1992, and has taught composition and harpsichord privately since 1970.

Also a distinguished harpsichordist, he is the first person since the eighteenth century to have performed the complete harpsichord literature of François Couperin.  His recording, J.S. Bach: Harpsichord Music in the Grand Manner (Wildboar Recordings) was named one of the best recordings of the year by the American Record Guide in 1996.  Smith has also been the administrator of the Trinity College Summer Chamber Music Series since 1998.

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