Ms. Christina Smith

Christina Smith teaches and performs on the violin, cello and viola da gamba in a variety of styles, including classical, Renaissance, and traditional folk. Among her teachers and mentors were Newfoundland fiddlers Emile Benoit and Rufus Guinchard, and the Japanese pedagogue Shin’ichi Suzuki, who conferred on her the degree of Suzuki Cello Teacher in 1990. Since 1982 she has taught with the Suzuki Talent Education Program of St. John’s, an organization which she has twice served as Artistic Director. In 2012 she received ArtsNL’s Arts in Education award, and in 2018, the Senate of Canada 150th Anniversary Medal for her work preserving traditional instrumental music of Newfoundland and Labrador, which which she collects, records, teaches, researches and publishes. She is the founder of the STEP fiddlers, a youth fiddle group, and the Gambade! Consort of Viols. She lives and teaches in St. John’s.