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Tommy Smith

Words & News

Updates on projects, work and music
Tommy Smith OBE

New Year honor for Tommy Smith

Scottish saxophonist Tommy Smith has been awarded an OBE for services to jazz in the 2019 New Year honours list. Edinburgh-born Smith has been a presence on the international jazz scene and a champion of jazz in Scotland since he emerged as a precocious talent in his teens during the 1980s. Following studies at Berklee […]

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Tommy Smith Youth Jazz Orchestra

Instrumental Tuition

As we hit 10,000 signatures that emphatically oppose the proposed Edinburgh City Council destructive cut of 75% to our Instrumental Tuition Service, we step significantly closer to eventually hearing from a senior Council officer and the evidence they may communicate at a public meeting to whether they will expunge their apathetic overture.

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Time and Motion

  Is it really 2015? It seems astonishing that a double of tens have passed since the birth of the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, yet here we are. Our story is a compelling one by any measure, and it reads at times like a drama in three acts. First there was the shaky start followed […]

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Tommy Smith

‘And we’ll take a rich guid-willy waught’

Dear Supporters of ‘Review all Genres of Music’, When I departed home this morning the petition was quiescent at 442 and my bones were unsettled. Having just returned from teaching at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland it’s now ascending at an active 832. I’ve taken time to dutifully read everything everyone has written and I’d […]

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Tommy Smith

We’ll take a cup of kindness yet

Dear Robert Burns and his descendants, On this sacred day, the Scotsman newspaper has taken the budgetary decision to end reviewing world music, classical and jazz recordings, which is a heart-breaking bowdlerization of minority art forms and another cessation for the popularization and liberality of creativity. They may publish occasional reviews in the future but […]

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University of Edinburgh – Celebration of Achievement ceremony

Film producer Lord Puttnam, rugby star Scott Hastings, jazz musician and composer Tommy Smith, Homeless World Cup President and founder of The Big Issue Scotland Mel Young, and Chair of CBI Scotland Nosheena Mobarik were awarded their degrees at a ceremony at the McEwen Hall, Edinburgh University.

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"Vocalise"

Vocalise by Rachmaninov featuring the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Stephen Bell and Scottish saxophonist Tommy Smith on 8th September 2012, Glasgow City Halls, BBC Proms Last Night Celebrations in Scotland.

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