David Smooke, composer (Baltimore, MD) currently teaches music theory, rock music history, and composition at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University where he is the Chair of the Music Theory Department. His honors include those from the Maryland State Arts Council, BMI, the National Association of Composers USA, the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Ragdale Foundation. He has collaborated on commissioned works for groups and individuals including the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), CUBE, Rhymes With Opera, the Great Noise Ensemble, and pianist Amy Briggs. He received a BA magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, a MM degree from the Peabody Conservatory, and a PhD from the University of Chicago, where he received the Century Fellowship, the highest fellowship offered by the Humanities Division. His composition teachers have included Shulamit Ran, David Rakowski, Robert Hall Lewis, and Richard Wernick. In addition to his composition activities, David performs improvisations on toy piano with the support of Schoenhut toy pianos, co-curates League of the Unsound Sound (LotUS), and writes a weekly column for NewMusicBox, the online magazine of the American Music Center.