Biography

Pianist Cahill Smith is an accomplished performer and devoted teacher. Actively concertizing as a soloist and chamber musician, Cahill has performed in major venues in the United States and abroad, including Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in New York, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Royal Dublin Society’s Concert Hall, Buffalo’s Kleinhan’s Music Hall, and Birmingham’s Alys Stephens Center. Internationally, Cahill has performed in eleven cities in China (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Zhuhai, Wuhan, Donying, Qingdao, Xiamen, Hohhot, and Lanzhou), three cities in Taiwan (Taipei, Taichung, Taitung), Kiev, Ukraine, as well as London and Dublin.  

He has been featured as a concerto soloist with the National Ukranian Symphony Orchestra in Kyiv, the Mongolian Symphony Orchestra in Hohhot, China, the Eastman Philharmonia, the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, the Chattanooga Symphony, the Butler Symphony Orchestra, the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra, and others. His live and studio recordings have been broadcast on WQXR, New York’s Classical Music Radio Station, WCRB, Classical Radio Boston, and WSMC, Chattanooga Public Radio.  

Cahill gave his first recital at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in 2013 with a program dedicated entirely to works of Nikolai Medtner. In a review of his 2015 solo recital in the same venue, New York Concert Review wrote, “in the piano music of Nikolai Medtner […], Mr. Smith was in his element, revealing every twist and turn, every poignant repeat of the cyclic themes, with beautiful shimmering colors I haven’t heard since Gilels played the Sonata reminiscenza in Carnegie Hall in 1980.” Cahill has given recitals and lectures on Medtner’s music at Yale University, the International Medtner Festival in London, and others.  

In January of 2019, Cahill’s debut album “Medtner: Forgotten Melodies” was featured as Classical Radio Boston’s “CD of the Week” for its “irresistible lyricism” and “a palpable sense of love – a real affinity for the directness and honesty in Medtner’s music, which goes straight to the heart.” Marc-André Hamelin, who reviewed the CD, also wrote: “It gives me great pleasure to endorse Cahill Smith as a sensitive, dedicated, and perceptive interpreter of the music of Nikolai Medtner. Unlike Rachmaninoff for instance (to whom he is often compared), Medtner rarely makes a strong first impression in careless hands, so he requires someone who will bring out the lyricism of the music to the fore, which necessitates a great deal of insight and care. Upon listening to Cahill’s disc, I found myself thinking repeatedly that his would be the kind of recording that offers the best chance for listeners to be taken into Medtner’s fascinating world from the very first hearing. It’s a remarkable accomplishment!”  

Cahill joined the faculty of Utah State University’s Caine College of the Arts in 2019, where he serves as co-coordinator of the piano program, Director of Graduate Studies in Music, Director of the Wassermann Piano Series, and Director of the USU Summer Piano Festival, an intensive week of public concerts and an intensive training program for high school pianists. Cahill serves as a faculty advisor for USU’s nationally recognized Youth Conservatory (YC), advises the USU Youth Conservatory, which offers affordable piano lessons and group classes to around 200 pre-college students in the community. He also serves as an advisor for the MTNA Collegiate Chapter at USU, which won the “National Collegiate Chapter of the Year” from MTNA this year in 2022. Cahill was named Teacher of the Year” (2023) “Undergraduate Mentor of the Year” (2023) and “Graduate Mentor of the Year” (2021). Cahill teaches courses in applied piano performance, piano pedagogy, advanced keyboard skills, and special topics courses in piano. 

Cahill serves as Programming Chair of the Chamber Music Society of Logan, and previously served on the faculty of Lee University from 2014-2020, where he directed the International Piano Festival and Competition and coordinated the keyboard area. 

Cahill completed his Doctorate of Musical Arts at the Eastman School of Music, where he served as the teaching assistant to Natalya Antonova. At Eastman, Cahill was the inaugural recipient of the Douglas Lowry award for excellence in degree recital performance, won the Eastman Concerto Competition, received honors in chamber music, and was awarded the Prize for Excellence in Teaching. Cahill completed his bachelor's degree at the University of Alabama at Birmingham with Yakov Kasman and his master's degree at the University of Michigan with Arthur Greene.