Susan L. Smith has been an educator for more than 25 years at the elementary through collegiate level including general music, choral, band, orchestra, guitar and educational pedagogy in Florida, Virginia and Alabama and has served as an author, clinician, conductor, and adjudicator across the United States. She is currently a Lecturer in Music Education and Horn at Troy University and pursuing a PhD in Music Education at Auburn University. Smith is a Past President of the Alabama Music Educators Association and the current Chair of the NAfME Collegiate Advisory Council. Most recently, she served as Director of Bands at the Saint James School in Montgomery AL. where her responsibilities included teaching the Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced Bands as well as Guitar, Jazz Band, and Music Technology and she served as Alabama Bandmasters Association District VI Chairman. The Saint James Band consistently received superior ratings in Jazz Band, Solo and Ensemble, Marching Band and Concert Band festivals. Saint James was a BOA multi-Regional and Super Regional Class Champion and Grand Nationals Semifinalist. Students were selected for district and all state bands as well as the BOA Rose Parade Honor Band, the Army All American Marching Band and the Music for All National Honor Band of America.
As a Coordinating Author for Warner Bros. Publications’ Expressions Music Curriculum, a vision for a Pre K – 12 vertical, conceptual approach to teaching music, she was as an author for Band Expressions, (a secondary component of the curriculum) and an editor for the Elementary, Orchestra, Choral, Guitar and Jazz texts. Smith has presented clinics at many state conventions and National and Division NAfME conferences and the Midwest Clinic. She serves as an educational consultant for Music for All and is responsible for the Chamber Music Festival portion of the Music for All National Festival and as an executive producer for the Mind the Gap Webinar and Podcast series for preservice and young teachers.
Her professional affiliations include the National Association for Music Education, Alabama Music Educators Association, Alabama Bandmasters Association, Phi Beta Mu, Sigma Alpha Iota, Phi Beta Kappa, National Band Association and is an honorary member of Tau Beta Sigma. She has conducted honor bands in Georgia, Alabama, Virginia, Georgia, Florida, West Virginia and Kentucky. She currently resides in Troy, Alabama with her husband Robert and has 2 daughters – Savannah and Madison. Savannah is a Band Director in her 5th year in Fayette County, Georgia and Madison is a 3rd year General Music Teacher in Lowndes County, Georgia.
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