Biography

Originally from Dublin, Ohio, SSG Allison Smith joined The U.S. Army Strings in the fall of 2025 after completing one year as a violin fellow at the New World Symphony. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University under the tutelage of Paul Kantor. She has served as Concertmaster of the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra and New World Symphony, as well as Principal Second at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Germany under the baton of Andris Nelsons for the inaugural Shostakovich Festival. She has also performed with the Houston, Atlanta, and Fort Worth Symphonies.
Passionate about chamber music and connecting with her community, she received funding from New World Symphony to create a performance titled Chocolate and Chamber Music, featuring works by living female composers paired with flavors of chocolate from a Miami-based chocolate shop. While studying at Rice University, she received the Sviatoslav Richter Fund Grant for Music Outreach which she used to perform concerts at Houston senior living facilities. She enjoys teaching young musicians and sharing her love of chamber music with students.
She has spent summers as a fellow at Tanglewood, Sarasota, Lancaster, Aspen, and Madeline Island music festivals and has performed alongside esteemed musicians such as Laufey, Caroline Shaw, Gabriel Kahane, and James Dunham. Outside of music, she enjoys lifting, running, reading, cooking, and exploring DC with her husband Nic.