Critics have described American cellist Brinton Averil Smith as a “virtuoso cellist with few equals,” hailing him as “a proponent of old-school string playing such as that of Piatigorsky and Heifetz.” Gramophone praised Brinton in his debut recording of Miklós Rózsa’s Cello Concerto as a “hugely eloquent, impassioned soloist,” writing “The sheer bravura of Smith’s reading is infectious.” BBC Music magazine wrote of his recent Naxos recording of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Cello Concerto, “his is a cast iron technique of verve and refinement put entirely at the service of the music… The artistry on display here is breathtaking,” while David Hurwitz of Classics Today wrote, “Smith plays the living daylights out of it. His full tone, impeccable intonation, and fleet passage work–never for a moment ungainly or stressed–lets the music soar.” Gramophone also wrote of Smith’s most recent Naxos recording, Exiles in Paradise, which explores the rich legacy of the émigré composers who gathered in Hollywood in the mid-20th century, “Smith plays the bejesus out of it, making child’s play of the rapid-fire spiccatos and almost impossible-to-control harmonics. …and teems with old-school elegance and just the right dose of schmaltz.”
Brinton’s North American engagements have included performances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and recital and concerto engagements throughout the country, while his broadcast performances include CBS’s Sunday Morning and regular appearances on NPR’s Performance Today and Symphonycast. He has appeared regularly as a soloist with the Houston Symphony since joining the orchestra as principal cellist in 2005. Prior to this, he was the first musician chosen by Lorin Maazel to join the New York Philharmonic and the principal cellist of the Fort Worth and San Diego Symphony Orchestras. His live concert performances on YouTube have been viewed more than one million times, including more than 250,000 views of a live encore of Paganini’s 24th Caprice. Devoted to expanding the cello repertoire, Brinton performs a wide variety of violin, piano, and vocal transcriptions, and gave the North American premiers of rediscovered cello works of Jean Sibelius and Alexander Zemlinsky as well as the world premiere of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Sonata for violin and cello. He also gave the first professional performance of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s cello concerto since its 1935 premiere with Arturo Toscanini and Gregor Piatigorsky.
An active chamber musician, Brinton has collaborated with violinist Gil Shaham on numerous occasions, including Carnegie Hall’s Gil Shaham and Friends series. He has also collaborated with cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Lynn Harrell; pianists Yefim Bronfman, Emanuel Ax, Jeffrey Kahane, and Kirill Gerstein; violinists James Ehnes, Cho-Liang Lin, and Sarah Chang; soprano Dawn Upshaw; and members of the Beaux Arts Trio; and the Guarneri, Emerson, Juilliard, Cleveland, and Berg quartets. He has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Marlboro Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, the Sarasota Music Festival, the Seattle Chamber Music Society, the Mainly Mozart Festival, the Brevard Music Festival, and the Texas Music Festival. Brinton is currently an associate professor at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University and a faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival.
The son of a mathematician and a pianist, Brinton Averil Smith was admitted to Arizona State University at age 10, where he took courses in mathematics and German and, at age 17, completed a B.A. in mathematics. He then became a student of Eleonore Schoenfeld at the University of Southern California, where he was also a teaching assistant in the mathematics department, and completed work for an M.A. in mathematics at age 19. He subsequently studied with the legendary cellist Zara Nelsova at The Juilliard School. While there, he was a prize winner in several consecutive Juilliard concerto competitions and the Leonard Rose International Cello Competition and received a doctor of musical arts degree, writing on the playing of Emanuel Feuermann. Brinton lives in Houston with his wife, the pianist Evelyn Chen, and their enormous but benevolent dog. Their daughter, Calista, is a soprano studying at Northwestern University. His cello was made by Gaetano Pasta in Brescia, c.1710.