Chloe Clarke Smith - Interview
In front of the red light with Chloe Clarke Smith - Check out the full interview HERE
Composer and pianist Chloe Clarke Smith is returning to her hometown of Baltimore with fresh vision and purpose. After earning her undergraduate degree in composition from the Boston Conservatory, she’s now beginning a new chapter at Johns Hopkins' Peabody Conservatory—right in the city where her journey began.
She was recently accepted into the Pathways program at Peabody, a selective track that allows students to seamlessly transition from their master’s degree into doctoral work. “I'll be here for like about five-ish years,” she explained. “As soon as you finish your master's, you matriculate into your doctoral thesis.”
The conversation also brought up a vital, often overlooked chapter in the city’s music history: the Baltimore City Colored Orchestra. Founded in 1930 with a grant from the city, it was created for African American musicians and audiences during segregation. Under the initial direction of Charles L. Harris, and later led by esteemed educator W. Llewellyn Wilson, the orchestra performed publicly from 1931 to 1939. Though it dissolved before World War II, its legacy remains a powerful symbol of Black artistic excellence and civic support for cultural expression.
Though classically trained, she resists narrow definitions. Chloe sees herself as a multidimensional artist: a composer, a pianist, and a creator whose work lives at the intersection of sound, identity, and Black cultural memory. Her journey is one of both structure and experimentation—rooted in traditional training but reaching beyond it to tell stories that haven't always been heard.
A significant part of her development came through her work with the Wildflower Composers program at Temple University. Chloe spoke passionately about her experience there and it being a great program for young female-identifying composers.
