During this time he studied with cellist Gordon Epperson in Tucson, Eleonore Schoenfeld in Los Angeles and periodically with Italo Babini in Detroit.
Smith attended graduate school at the University of Southern California and completed work for an MA in Mathematics at age 19.
After a summer studying with Zara Nelsova at the Aspen Music Festival, Smith chose to pursue music full-time and enrolled at the Juilliard School with Nelsova, where he received MM and DMA degrees, writing his thesis on the Physical and Interpretive Technique of Emanuel Feuermann.
As a devoted advocate of compelling unfamiliar repertoire, Smith gave the North American premiers of rediscovered works of Jean Sibelius and Alexander Zemlinsky (with pianist Evelyn Chen), and recently gave the first professional performance of the lost cello concerto of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (with conductor Kazuki Yamada and the Houston Symphony) since its premiere in 1935 with Arturo Toscanini and Gregor Piatigorsky, and the world premiere of Castelnuovo-Tedesco's 1951 Sonata for Violin and Cello (with violinist Adele Anthony.)
As a chamber musician, Smith has collaborated with violinist Gil Shaham on numerous occasions including Carnegie Hall's Gil Shaham and Friends series and with cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Lynn Harrell, pianists Emanuel Ax, Jonathan Biss and Kirill Gerstein, violinists James Ehnes, Cho-Liang Lin and Sarah Chang, soprano Dawn Upshaw, and members of the Beaux Arts Trio and the Guarneri, Emerson, Juilliard, Cleveland, and Berg quartets.