Drumroll, Please, for CFA’s Gareth Smith
School of Music assistant professor of music, music education, has a new album, an endorsement deal, and a book in the works
Gareth Dylan Smith plays Zildjian cymbals exclusively now under an arrangement with the famous 400-year-old company. Photo by Martha Dunne
Drumroll, Please, for CFA’s Gareth Smith
School of Music prof has a new album, an endorsement deal, and a book in the works
This article was originally published in BU Today on June 17, 2025. By Joel Brown
EXCERPT
This year has brought a steady drumbeat of good news for Gareth Dylan Smith: an album release, a book in the works, a faculty reappointment, even an endorsement deal. Smith, a busy drummer and a College of Fine Arts School of Music assistant professor of music, music education, has released his second album, Sonata Pathétique, an unusual collaboration with pianist Austina Lee (CFA’23). They perform Beethoven’s Sonata No. 8 in C Minor Opus 13, Pathétique, with his snares and cymbals moving in and around the great composer’s original piano lines from 1798.
“The way I describe this is that it is as if the piece were a black-and-white outline of an intricate image, and Gareth’s responsive interaction from the drums colors it in,” Lee says. “The result is vibrancy that I could have never seen or heard otherwise. This is a testament to his musicianship and sensitivity and is a stark contrast to his rock drumming.”
The two musicians initially met when Smith, teaching online, advised Lee on her dissertation, but they didn’t meet in person until she came to Boston to collect her doctorate in music arts at Commencement 2023. More than a year ago, they collaborated—again remotely—on a track for his 2024 solo album, Permission Granted, a series of wildly eclectic duets he recorded with several musicians. He and Lee played the second movement (the Adagio Cantabile) of the Pathétique, a piece she says she connects with deeply.
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A trip to the UK last fall found the two in Wales, where Smith used to live and teach, at Fieldgate Studios, which is run by Andrew Lawson, a former drum student of Smith’s from the ’90s. “We came together to try the whole sonata, and it sounded—it felt—really good,” he says. It was mixed by Max Liebman (CFA’23), who runs Kingston, N.Y.–based Anthrophonic Records.
After the one-day recording in Wales—the album is produced by Lee and Smith—Liebman took over mixing and mastering. “The first mix he sent us, actually, the piano was up here, and the drums were down there,” Smith says, “and we were like, no, it needs to sound like everyone’s having a conversation. Conversations at the Drums is the title of the book I’m starting to write about making my solo album. And the conversation is kind of the point.”
Always happiest with his sticks in hand
This year Smith also signed an endorsement deal with the legendary cymbal maker Avedis Zildjian Company of Norwell, Mass. Already a Zildjian booster, he visited the Zildjian headquarters in March and was able to pick out a few new cymbals from the company as the newest member of its “educational artist” team.
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On the academic side, Smith’s faculty appointment at CFA was renewed for another four years. He teaches, largely online, graduate students in the music education program. And later this fall Oxford University Press will publish his book, Authentic Drum Kit Pedagogy. Cowritten with Virginia Davis, a professor of music education at the University of Texas Rio Grande, the book is for teachers from elementary through high school.
“Teachers know they should teach drums, but they often don’t know exactly what that means beyond holding the sticks and starting off,” he says. “They’re often so focused on, ‘Your right hand does this, your left hand does this, and then listen to the bass player.’ But it’s got to feel good.”
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Smith says he’s always happiest, though, with his sticks in hand.
“I’m very grateful that I get to move between music and music education,” he says. “One of the cool things about the improvisation course is trying to rekindle students’ interest in music. They get so absorbed in their day jobs and teaching and in scholarship and the things you need to do to get a graduate degree that it’s easy to forget that music is what brought us here and what brings us so much life.”