Smit, André-Jean

André-Jean Smit was born in 1926 at Ville-D’Avray, near Paris. His mother, a pianist gave him his first lessons. With private instruction, and principally at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels, he continued his studies, culminating in the receipt of first prize in all classes of writing. He studied composition with Marcel Quinet principally.
In 1975, the Royal Academy of Belgium awarded him their triennial prize for his Esquisses Concertantes for violoncello and orchestra. In 1987, the directors of the heritage committee of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels granted him their Madame de la Hault honor, intended to reward the professional and pedagogical merits of a professor.

He worked close to twenty years at the Instrumental Museum, where he created a studio to record instruments of antiquity. A honorary professor at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels, he is also a honorary director of the Music Academy of Saint-Gilles in Brussels. Here is what the musicologist Olivier Grandville has to say about him: „Far from the coteries and “schools” André-Jean Smit ascribes to no system. Indifferent to the popular currents, he follows his own path, true to his creative process. His language, original and sensitive, is accessible to many through the authentic structural and emotional qualities that animate it.