Barry Smith (organist)

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Barry Smith (b. 1939) is a distinguished South African organist, choral and orchestral conductor, author, and musicologist.

Born in 1939 in Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape Province,South Africa, Smith developed his love of music as a choirboy at St Mary’s Collegiate Church in that city. In 1956, Smith was awarded a scholarship to Rhodes University in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape Province, where he completed his Ph.D. degree. In 1960, Smith went to the United Kingdom on scholarship to the Royal School of Church Music. Smith then returned to South Africa to serve as Director of Music for two years at the Michaelhouse senior school for boys in KwaZulu-Natal province. In 1964, Smith was appointed Organist and Master of the Choristers of St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa, a post he held until 2006 for a record forty-two years.

From 1966 to 1999, Smith was on the staff of the Faculty of Music at the University of Cape Town, from which university he also holds a DMus degree. In 1964, Smith founded the St. George’s Singers, which he still directs. Besides conducting in the United Kingdom, Austria, and Israel, Smith has made several solo recital tours both in America and England where he has played in many prestigious venues, including Westminster Abbey and King’s College, Cambridge.

Smith has received honorary fellowships from both the Royal School of Church Music and the Guild of Church Musicians in the United Kingdom. Archbishop Desmond Tutu awarded Smith with the Order of Simon of Cyrene, the highest honour the Anglican Church of Southern Africa can bestow on a layman.

The Oxford University Press published his major new biography of the English composer Peter Warlock (Philip Heseltine) in 1994 to mark the centenary of his birth. Since then he has published three further books on Warlock, including a four-volume work, 'The Collected Letters of Peter Warlock'(2005).

He has adjudicated in Hong Kong and directed music courses in Perth, Australia and in Washington D.C. In June 2007, Smith and his St George’s Singers took part in the Sir Edward Elgar 150th Anniversary Celebrations in Worcester, England, where he also conducted the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in Worcester Cathedral.