About Me
Adam Smith is a classically trained trumpet player based in San Diego, California. He is weeks away from graduating from San Diego State University with a Bachelor of Music in Trumpet Performance, having studied with longtime San Diego Symphony 2nd trumpet, John Wilds. Adam has served as the principal trumpet of the SDSU Wind Symphony, Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, and Symphonic Band while also performing with various trumpet ensembles, jazz ensembles, and brass quintets.
He is a 2023 Drum Corps International World Champion, having performed with the 21-time World Champion Blue Devils (Concord, Calif.), Blue Stars (La Crosse, Wisc.), and The Battalion (Salt Lake City, Utah). He has performed in opera pits internationally, most recently having performed operas by Mozart and Ravel in Vienna, Austria with conductor Jeansam Salazar. He has appeared in performance with the La Jolla Brass; in masterclasses with Matt Ernst, Ryan Darke, and Pacho Flores; and is a substitute musician for the La Jolla Symphony and Music Director Sameer Patel. He is thankful to have had the opportunity to perform in 28 states (plus Austria), and looks forward to more music-related travel in the future.
Adam started his musical journey in the fourth grade playing the clarinet as a tribute to his father. After seeing the 2017 DCI World Championships, he knew that he needed to switch to the trumpet and did so in his junior year of high school. He was a drum major and visual instructor at his high school in Colorado, and had an extreme passion for the marching arts before falling in love with orchestral music in college. He also held an internship at Castle Rock Middle School, teaching and conducting the bands there in his senior year. His first time playing trumpet as a primary instrument was 2021 in the SDSU ensembles, although he appeared on many occasions as a bass, contrabass, and contra-alto bass clarinetist in his first several years before transitioning entirely. After some more time on the trumpet and a deep focus on trumpet pedagogy and repertoire, he was able to secure positions in the SDSU orchestras and Wind Symphony in his fourth semester.
Adam has career aspirations in the orchestral field, although a career in the military bands or chamber music is interesting to him as well. He has performed three solo recitals with focus on Arutunian’s Concerto in A-flat, Enesco’s Legend, and Hummel’s Concerto in E-flat Major, and has enjoyed performing works including Beethoven’s Fifth and Seventh Symphonies, John Mackey’s Aurora Awakes, Copland’s Fanfare to the Common Man, Mussorgsky/Ravel’s Pictures at an Exhibition, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, and Ravel’s L’enfant et les Sortileges. Through all of this, he has also developed skill on trumpets in Bb, C, D, and Eb along with rotary trumpets, piccolo trumpets, cornets, and flugelhorns.
When not playing trumpet, you’ll find Adam surfing in sunny San Diego, hiking, at Disney, or enjoying copious amounts of Italian food. You might also find him training for his first full marathon (2025 goal?) or exploring new countries and cities at any opportunity. He also loves to explore musical history, law, and has a knack for airplane fun facts after forfeiting his early high school dream of a career in aviation.
Over the course of my life, I hope to continue bringing energetic performance to audiences everywhere. I hope to pass the art of music on to the next generation through my teaching and by inspiring others to follow their passions. It is an absolute gift to get to perform and teach in the way that I have, and I am thrilled to make that happen in the future in any way possible.
