Faculty members since the fall of 1990. Graduate of Troy and the University of South Florida with degrees in music education and performance. Raymond Smith has taught for more than thirty years at all levels including elementary, junior high, high school, university, and graduate studies. Mr. Smith’s teaching experiences include concert band, wind ensemble, marching band, jazz ensemble, music theory, applied woodwinds, woodwind techniques, jazz history, instrument repair, music technologies, and concert band literature.

Raymond Smith is an active soloist, recitalist, clinician, and adjudicator. Mr. Smith has been featured soloist with the Troy University Symphony Band on many occasions. His other professional credits include performances with the Florida Orchestra, Tampa Bay Symphony, Gulf Coast Symphony, Sarasota Opera, Tampa Ballet, Moscow Ballet, Jeoffrey Ballet, Barnum and Bailey Circus, and many Broadway musicals. As a professional free-lance woodwind specialist, Mr. Smith has played with many of the top recording artist in the jazz, pop, county, and classical music fields. His first record contract was at the age of 15. Since then he has recorded, performed with, and accompanied many of the legends of jazz and commercial music. Some of these artists include jazz artist Sammy Davis, Jr., Al Hirt, Lionel Hampton, Burt Bacharach, Julie Andrews, and Ella Fitzgerald; country artists Eddie Arnold, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and Kenny Rogers; pop stars: Gladys Knight, The Four Tops, The Temptations, and the Platters; entertainers Bob Hope, Red Skelton, and Steve Allen; and many others.

Raymond Smith’s conducting experience includes all-star bands, honor bands, community bands, orchestras, choirs, musicals, and director of a network television affiliate. His teachers include some of the finest conductors and educators in America, including John M. Long, Dick Floyd, William Revelli, Stanley DeRusha, and Donald Hunsburger.

Mr. Smith’s past and present affiliations include the Phi Bata Mu, American School Band Directors Association, the National Band Association, the Alabama Bandmasters Association, the Florida Bandmaster Association, the Georgia Music Educators association, Phi Mu Alpha, Kappa Kappa Psi, and Tau Beta Sigma. Mr. Smith has received many individual honors including Teacher of the Year in Gulf County, Florida, Outstanding Larders in Elementary and Secondary Education, NAACP Service Award and the National Cancer Society service award.

Raymond is currently professor of woodwinds and director of the “Sound of the South” Concert Band.