He has written and recorded four studio albums, performed internationally and been compared to such composers as Philip Glass and Steve Reich.
Along with his wife, singer Nicola Walker Smith (born 1964), he has written and recorded numerous pieces of music and published American Originals (Faber & Faber, 1995); a book of interviews with American contemporary composers such as John Cage, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson and Terry Riley.
[4] Although strongly influenced by American composers, much of Smith's musical work borrows lyric content from traditional English verse and Romantic poets such as Emily Brontë, John Keats, Christina Rossetti, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Elizabeth Siddal.
In 2002, he founded the School of Music and Performing Arts at Bath Spa which was recognized as a national Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning in 2005.
[9] He also led the development of the university's online brand, 'Falmouth Flexible', and authored the '2030 Portfolio Strategy' for the building of a pedagogy fit for the '4th Industrial Revolution'.