Clinton Smith’s 2022/2023 season includes a return to Dayton Opera to conduct Charlie Parker’s Yardbird with the Dayton Philharmonic in the pit. He will return to Arizona Opera and lead an orchestral workshop of the newly commissioned Frankenstein and will conduct members of the Atlanta Symphony at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church for their annual performance of Messiah. Clinton will also make his Georgia Philharmonic debut, conducting two subscription concerts this season. 

Season 2021/2022 included a return to Dayton Opera to conduct L'elisir d'amore and Opera Las Vegas to conduct Strawberry Fields/Trouble In Tahiti. He covered Tosca and Attila at Sarasota Opera, and made his Opera Company of Middlebury conducting debut with Orphée aux Enfers. When home in Atlanta, he regularly coached the members of Atlanta Opera’s Young Artist Program and spent his ninth summer on the music staff at Santa Fe Opera covering the world premiere of Corgliano/Adamo's Lord of Cries. 

Mr. Smith’s recent operatic conducting appearances include Atlanta Opera (Charlie Parker’s Yardbird, Der Kaiser von Atlantis, The Threepenny Opera), Arizona Opera (Charlie Parker’s Yardbird), Florentine Opera (Le nozze di Figaro), Dayton Opera (Il barbiere di Siviglia, Cenerentola), Opera Birmingham (Cendrillon), Opera Orlando (Pagliacci/Pulcinella), Kentucky Opera (The Mikado), Tacoma Opera (Le nozze di Figaro, L’elisir d’amore), Opera Las Vegas (Noah’s Flood), Pacific Northwest Opera (Turandot, Norma, Hansel und Gretel), The University of Michigan (Il barbiere di Siviglia), and Fargo-Moorhead Opera (Alcina).  He has served on the music staff of Santa Fe Opera, Juilliard Opera, Minnesota Opera, Atlanta Opera, Portland Opera, Kentucky Opera, Ash Lawn Opera, and Skylark Operas and has included the preparation of over sixty operas in German, Italian, French, English, Czech, Russian, and Mandarin. 

On equal footing in the orchestral world, Mr. Smith recently concluded a collective nine years as music and artistic director of both Orchestra Seattle/Seattle Chamber Singers and the St. Cloud Symphony, conducting over 60 orchestral, oratorio, chamber, pops, educational, and holiday concert performances. While music director of OSSCS, he saw subscriptions double and worked with the managing director to double annual fundraising events. Among his many accomplishments include conducting seven to ten subscription concerts a season, creating a chamber music series, annual Messiah performances, and partnering with numerous cultural and educational organizations including the Hong Kong Association of Washington, the Seattle Chinese Arts Group, German Consulate, Cornish College, and Seattle University, to name a few. He launched a composer competition, which premiered a new work annually, and a concerto competition to showcase local talent. His carefully curated programming focused on locally relevant themes, and explored an enormous breadth of musical styles and genres. 

For four seasons, Minnesota Opera engaged Mr. Smith as cover conductor and chorus master, where he led main stage performances of La traviata and Madama Butterfly and covered the St. Paul Chamber and Minnesota Opera Orchestras in over 20 productions. During 2011, Mr. Smith conducted a workshop and prepared the world premiere of Kevin Puts'’ opera Silent Night, which won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Music. For Minnesota Opera's New Works Initiative, Mr. Smith prepared workshops & performances of Douglas J. Cuomo's Doubt, Rick Ian Gordon's The Garden of the Finzi Continis, and the North-American premiere of Jonathan Dove's The Adventures of Pinocchio, as well as Dominick Argento's Casanova's Homecoming and Bernard Herrmann's Wuthering Heights. 

Previous positions include assistant conductor and chorus master for San Francisco Opera's Merola Program, assistant conductor for Glimmerglass Opera, music director of Western Ontario University's Canadian Operatic Arts Academy, guest coach at the National University of Taiwan, music director and conductor of the Franco-American Vocal Academy in France, the Austrian-American Mozart Academy in Salzburg, and the University of Michigan Life Sciences Orchestra. Born in Texas, Mr. Smith holds degrees in orchestral conducting from the University of Michigan and piano performance from the University of Texas at Austin.