Taylor N. Smith

Graduate Student (1st Year)

Pianist and soprano, Taylor Smith, is a first-year graduate musicology student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A native of Connecticut, Taylor received a Bachelor of Arts in Music History and Analysis, summa cum laude, from Northeastern University in 2016, and a Master of Music in Jazz Studies, concentrating on voice, from The Hartt School in 2021. Throughout her schooling and within the community, Taylor has served as an accompanist, pianist, and singer. From these experiences, she has performed a wide range of works that consist of opera, sacred hymnody, classical, gospel, jazz, R&B, Afro-Cuban jazz, and musical theater.

When she begins her Ph.D. studies at UNC, Taylor looks forward to researching the remarkable and pioneering influence that sopranos of color—across opera, musical theater, Broadway, and gospel—have had on representation. Some of her additional research interests include music and psychology; the relationship between Frédéric Chopin’s personality and his solo piano works; classical and jazz piano performance, technique, and harmony; and music and Christianity.

While at UNC, Taylor also aspires to continue performing both inside and outside of the university community in the hopes of demonstrating her versatility as a performer, educator, and scholar, and inspire others on their journeys toward becoming performers and performer-scholars.