Biographies

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Dr. Amelia Smith, a dedicated clarinet performer and educator, hails from a small town outside Minneapolis and has taught clarinet across the United States. She is currently Lecturer of Clarinet at the Fresno State School of Music and has previously taught at the University of Mississippi.

In addition to her teaching, Smith is an accomplished performer who has played both nationally and internationally. She has performed with the Fresno Philharmonic, Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Santa Monica, and in a masterclass with members of the Mozarteum Orchestra, performing the Mozart Clarinet Quintet. Her soloist appearances include being invited to perform the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with the Sinfonietta Orchestra of Memphis and the Copland Clarinet Concerto with musicians from USC's Thornton School of Music. Dr. Smith has also earned several competition placements, including first prize in the graduate division of the five-state Schubert Club Scholarship Competition in the Twin Cities, MN.
 

Amelia teaches and performs in both Fresno and Los Angeles. In LA, she worked with Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA), an El Sistema-inspired program funded by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. As YOLA Inglewood’s first Clarinet Teaching Artist, she not only cultivated students' musical skills but also fostered a strong sense of community. An activist committed to social justice, Dr. Smith believes in the transformative power of music education at all levels. She holds degrees from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University (BM), the Rudi E.
Scheidt School of Music at the University of Memphis (MM), and the University of Minnesota Twin Cities (DMA). Her former instructors include Howard Klug, Dr. Robyn Jones, Alexander Fiterstein, and Timothy Zavadil.

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A native of Fresno, California, Dr. Matthew Harikian has extensive performance and teaching experience including performing nationally as a soloist with symphony orchestras and holding faculty appointments at several institutions. 

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Harikian maintains an active solo performance career and has performed concertos with the Lompoc Pops, Opera San Luis Obispo, and Buffalo Community orchestras. His greatest passion, however, is found in making music with others and he frequently concertizes with other instrumentalists and vocalists in Southern California and the Central Valley. In 2022, he attended Music Academy of the West as one of nine selected collaborative piano fellows, during which he was a finalist in the festival's Duo Competition. One of the many ways he showcases his versatility is through performing his own arrangements of the music of artists such as Coldplay, Hans Zimmer, and Elton John at a candlelight concert series in which he is actively involved.

Harikian is a member of Trio Palmera, a group comprising violin, clarinet, and piano that aims to explore the lesser-known repertoire for that instrumentation. In March 2024, Trio Palmera was selected as a semifinalist in the Coltman Chamber Music Competition in Austin, TX.

His research interests involve early 20th-century neotonality in the music of Sergei Prokofiev and Sergei Rachmaninoff, as well as American serialism with special emphasis in the music of Elliott Carter and Ursula Mamlok. Equally passionate about education, both in regard to music theory and piano performance, Harikian has held appointments teaching theory at St. Olaf College, Gustavus Adolphus College, and Augsburg University, as well as a staff pianist position at Fresno State University.

Harikian obtained his DMA from the Thornton School of Music at USC in Collaborative Piano with an academic emphasis in Music Theory and elective studies in Instrumental Conducting and Organ Performance. Previous teachers include Kevin Fitz-Gerald, Lydia Artymiw, Kent McWilliams, Ick-Choo Moon, and Arlene Steffen. He holds a bachelor's degree in Piano Performance from St. Olaf College and master's degrees in both Piano Performance and Music Theory from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.