Stephanie Lynne Smith

Born and raised in Wichita Falls, Texas, Stephanie Smith is an active pianist, conductor, clinician, vocal coach, worship leader and chamber musician in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her qualifications include a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder, studying with Alvin Chow and Larry Graham, and a Master of Music degree in chamber music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Paul Hersh. Her professional experience of more than a decade includes performing in master classes for Menahem Pressler and Emmanuel Ax, working with renowned composers such as Alden Jenks, David Garner and David Conte, and providing accompaniment for such luminaries as Sharon McNight, B.D. Wong and Tony Award winner Alan Cumming.

After accompanying the Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco Chorus for two years, Stephanie was appointed Artistic Director and Conductor in 2002. She directs LGCSF in multiple performances annually and regularly collaborates with other organizations including the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus. An exciting highlight of her career with LGCSF came in July, 2004, when she led the Chorus at the quadrennial Festival of GALA Choruses in Montreal before an audience of 3,500. Stephanie looks forward to taking both LGCSF and the MCCSF music department to the GALA Festival in Miami 2008.

Stephanie is proud to be the founding music director New Spirit Community Church in Berkeley and firmly believes that Spirit is freely flowing in the world today. After 3 years at New Spirit, Stephanie received a clear call to leave the church, inspite of the fact that there was nothing "wrong". She took two months off before another call came to serve as music director at St. Aidan's Episcopal Church, a small, gay-friendly parish in San Francisco. 6 months later, she was "perfectly happy", minding her own business when Spirit troubled the waters and moved her from a nice, quiet parish on the hill to the charismatic, urban ministry of MCC San Francisco. Almost 2 years later, Stephanie feels God's presence firmly guiding her and gives thanks every day for the opportunity to serve this amazing congregation.

In addition to her work at LGCSF and MCCSF, Stephanie is a co-founder of Gay, Lesbian and Allied Musicians (GLAM) Youth Choir, serves as Vice-Chair of the GLAM Steering Committee, is President of the Board of the Jon Sims Center for the Arts, and teaches K-5th grade classroom music at Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy. She is honored to be on the music team for MCC General Conference and absolutely loves working with Candy, Orgena and Wayne.