Areas of Research or Creative Practice: Music Performance, Music Composition, Audio Engineering (tracking/mixing/mastering/producing), Interactive Media, HCI, Science and Technology Studies (STS), Literary and Critical Studies, and interdisciplinary research

Education

PhD (Music) - The University of California, San Diego
MM (Music) - Mannes the New School for Music
BM (Music) - Mannes the New School for Music

Biography

Praised by The New York Times for her “appealingly melancholic sound” and “entertaining array of distortion effects,” Alexandria Smith is a multimedia artist, audio engineer, scholar, trumpeter, and educator who enjoys working at the intersection of all these disciplines. Her research interests focus on integrating methods of making and scholarship into music technology. To explore how electronic music is embodied through practice, she has been experimenting with ways to integrate biofeedback training and sensor observation into her music and designing interactive media applications and environments for performers. Her research in this interdisciplinary area has been published in Arcana Musicians on Music X and presented at the Audio Engineering Society (AES), MoxSonic, New Music on the Bayou, and more. 
 
Alexandria Smith is an active performer-composer in New York City, California, New Orleans, and Atlanta. Recent performances include performing in the premiere of Alvin Lucier’s Orpheus Variations for solo cello, seven wind instruments, and seven dancers, David Behrman’s "Open Space with Brass" with Ed Bear & Ensemble, San Diego Symphony’s Hearing the Future Festival, Tulane’s Music at Midday Series, Instigation Festival, and the Instant Opus Series. She has also performed with Marina Orchestra at French Quarter Fest, Congo Square Fest, and opened for Red Baraat with Marina Orchestra at Tipitina's. 
 
As an improviser/multi-media artist, Smith has had a residency at the Stone NYC and feature recitals on the Future of New Trumpet (FONT) Festival West, Dartmouth’s Vaughan Recital Series, the VI Semana Internacional de Improvisación in Ensenada, Baja California, and Tulane University. She has been a performer at the FONT Festival NYC, Improv Night at the Stone, Chosen Vale Seminar for Advanced Musical Studies, Either/OR Spring Festival. She has performed with Jeff Albert, Anthony Coleman, Billy Martin, Caroline Miller, Justin Peake, Kathryn Schulmeister, Wilfrido Terrazas, the Tilt Ensemble, Dave Taylor, the Versipel Ensemble, John Zorn, and more. Alexandria can be heard on Billy Martin’s GUILTY and Wilfredo Terrazas’ ‘the Torres Cycle’. She has be heard on Billy Martin’s GUILTY and Wilfredo Terrazas’ Torres Cycle.
 
Alexandria specializes in recording/mixing/mastering music that mixes different genres and experimental music. Her work has been referred to by Downbeat as “splendidly engineered.” Alexandria’s recent project as tracking/mix/mastering engineer and co-producer of Grammy-nominated bassist Mark Dresser’s Tines of Change was favorably reviewed by Downbeat, the Wire Magazine, San Diego Union Tribune, Percorsi Musical, All About Jazz, jazz-fun.de-Magazin für Jazz Musik, and more and was rated as one of the ‘Best Solo Albums of the Year’ by bestofjazz.org and best of 2023 by Downbeat. She has worked on recordings by Basher, Filera (Carmina Escobar, Natalia Pérez Turner, and Wilfrido Terrazas), Alvin Lucier, Rand Steiger, Treesearch, TJ Borden, Judith Hamann, and more. Her audio engineering work can be heard on labels such as Pyroclastic Records, Infrequent Seams, Black Truffle, New Focus Recordings, 577 Records, 1980 Records, and Blank Forms. 

She is currently an Assistant Professor of Music at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego, and holds an M.M. and B.M. from Mannes the New School for Music.
 
Alexandria is a Demonic Machines Artist.
 

Statement of Teaching Interest

As an instructor and research advisor, I approach pedagogy by engaging students through community-based learning projects, curiosity-centered pedagogy, and collective knowledge sharing. My main teaching areas are designing interactive systems, instrument design, music technology history and repertoire, and composing and performing with interactive systems.

Statement of Research Interest

Areas of Research or Creative Practice: Music Performance, Designing Interactive Systems, Instrument Design, Science and Technology Studies (STS), Interdisciplinary Research, Music Composition, and Audio Engineering (tracking/mixing/mastering/producing)