Wilson Tanner Smith

Wilson Tanner Smith is a Philadelphia-born composer, arranger, and performer currently based in Chicago. His works have been performed in the Philadelphia and Chicago areas by the Northwestern University Contemporary Music Ensemble, the NU Symphonic Wind Ensemble, flutists in collaboration with Claire Chase, bassoonist Nick Ritter, the ‘Insert Musical Here’ Theatre Company, Mariachi Northwestern, and Ensemble Linea. His music is characterized by an interest in limited materials and simple forms, gestural, visual, and poetic metaphor, improvisation/intuition, and a sense of the theatrical, all with the purpose of a broad communicativity — an aspiration to share (in) something with another. He graduated from Northwestern University cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in music composition and a minor in musicology, and is a student of Jay Alan Yim, Juan Campoverde, and the late Lee Hyla.