MUSICIAN- Nick Simmons-Smith

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Welcome to Words of Life. I'm Chris Benjamin, the producer of the show and director for the Salvation Army Soundcast. Don't worry, Bernie and Cheryl haven't gone anywhere. Bernie is going to join me in a couple of weeks, and we'll hear from Cheryl again in our next series. Today we begin a new seven-week series called Crafted. This has been a series on our heart for quite a while, and we really can't wait to dive in. We'll be speaking with a different artist, craftsperson of different mediums each week, learning about their passion for their craft, and asking how they use their gifts as an act of worship and rest. In this first episode, we'll hear from our only musician of the series, Nick Simmons-Smith.

He joined us in the studio at the piano as he shared his story and journey in music performance and composition. Are we rolling? We're rolling. Cheesy. Should I know what that is?

Yeah, you should. And he walks with me, and he talks with me, and in the garden. I come from the garden alone, and it's one of those old hymns that just is stuck in my brain from my youth. So officially, welcome to Words of Life. Thank you. And to our audience, this is Nick Simmons-Smith. You are the Territorial Music and Creative Arts Education Secretary.

Is that correct? So first of all, what does that mean? What do you do for the Salvation Army? Well, I coordinate all the music in our worship centers, what we call CORE, which is really our churches, and we have a lot of music programs, particularly for our young people, but for all ages. And we have brass bands, which is kind of a relic of the Victorian England that the Salvation Army was born out of. We have choirs, we have great praise and worship bands. We also have great dance and theater ministries now, and all kinds of things that kind of keep people involved in our CORE, in our worship centers, that then you can disciple them about Jesus once you've got them. And particularly in the states where you have marching bands at school, kids are used to playing their horn. They come to church sometimes when they're young and immature in their faith for the music, for the fellowship. And the great thing about music in the Salvation Army is it's just a way to catch young people and keep them there, and then disciple them about Christ. So I kind of coordinate all of that from Atlanta, and we have divisional representatives in the field that I help, and they do the work. And I'm kind of three steps removed from real people, which is a sad thing for me.

I want to be with the kids. But fortunately, my own home church, I get to work with the young people there and teach them about music, but more importantly, about Jesus. So that's kind of what I do. So backing up before you ended up here, what is your background?

Obviously, our listeners can tell that that's not an Atlanta, Georgia native accent. So yeah, give me a little bit of your background. Okay, I grew up in a place called Chelmsford, which was just 25 minutes out of London. And I grew up in the Salvation Army, fifth generation Salvationist, and probably learned more musically with the Salvation Army than I ever did at church or university, I have to say, just from observation, being around good people. And music was something I gravitated to early on. I was a trombone player. And my great aunt, Eva, who was a very holy lady, she paid for all my counter lessons.

We didn't have a lot of money. It was just my sister, my mum at home for a long period of time. But my great aunt paid for my counter lessons. And I'm so grateful for that, because while I didn't enjoy taking them at the time, the benefits now of being able to play a little bit of the piano is I really appreciate. So that's kind of how I grew up. And I got I went to music college, really, I wanted to be a lawyer or a journalist, but that sounded like hard work.

So I thought I'll do something easy. And music came quite naturally. So I did my studies in music. I answered an advert in a Salvationist magazine that was looking for someone to come to Texas, and to travel and to teach music to kids. And I kind of without thinking about it said, Okay, I'll go. And I went for an interview. And he fed me, he took me to Texas Longhorn, and it was cheesy fries and a steak and a dessert.

And I thought, I'm coming. And so I came when I was 23, out to Dallas, Texas, worked as a music director out there for four and a half years, came back to England for a year and a half taught high school, which I loved. And then I got the opportunity to come back to America, to run a performing arts program in Dallas again. And I was already dating the person that had replaced me in Dallas, called Roberta.

They brought on a creative arts person in my place, inherited my cell phone and my extension number and my vehicle. And we kind of hooked up online, if you like, started chatting, found we were in a similar place, spiritually and with our experience, and then worked in Texas a little bit more. And then 13 years ago, we both got promoted to come to territorial headquarters, didn't want to come to Atlanta. But we love it here now.

It has trees and hills and three seasons as opposed to two in Texas. So that's kind of how we're here. I have two boys now, two Americans. My wife's Canadian.

I was British, but we're all American citizens now. And we're here for life, and we love it. And we love what we do.

We love where we live. Can you think of either some pieces of music or a moment when things really started to click and you could hear the music and it really started to pull you in? Yeah, I never describe myself as a piano player, which shocks some people because I'm often asked to play the piano. Every Sunday I'm playing the piano and I still don't think of myself as a piano player, which is crazy, really. I do play, but I'm a 50-50 player. So that means I read, I read fine.

But if it was something incredibly difficult, I'd struggle. But I can also play by ear. So I think most of my musical education came by osmosis where I would listen for certain chords or observe somebody. We went on a tour to Sweden with our singing company. That's a junior choir.

And I observed somebody playing in the piano called Kurt Dahlquist. And he used chords I hadn't heard of. Chords like this one. You would never use that in a British, salvation army chord perhaps.

But he, or this one. Jazzy chords that you wouldn't normally use. And it just drew me in.

I love harmony. The beauty of the piano, you have all these notes, 88 notes maybe, and you can make such gorgeous sounds that really speak to you. They have, each chord has an emotion.

For instance, this one I just played for you. You can feel the tension in that chord, you know, and it has colour. So I think there was a point where I was 16 and I visited Sweden and I learned from Kurt. I was into gospel choir music.

And that's kind of what got me started. I left the music and I went by ear and now I do both. And I'm really blessed that I persevered and my mum made me go to those lessons that kind of got me over the hump. Music speaks to your emotion in a very personal way. And also in worshipping the Lord, music is so powerful, so powerful. For me to sit at the piano, not on my trombone, but sit at the piano and just play hymn tunes is a worshipful experience for me. So there's that one aspect of music where it's very raw and real and very natural to worship the Lord through music. The second part is what I mentioned earlier in that it's really the discipleship. Music is just a conduit for which I work through the Holy Spirit to these young people.

And it's a connection point. So the brass banding, while it's a strange thing for some people to understand, is actually one of the most multi-generational and intercultural things we do in the army. Because my little core band up in Lawrenceville, Georgia has Koreans, Jamaicans, Hispanics, African-American, 81-year-olds, 13-year-olds, all sitting next to each other. And they get a sense of community, a sense of fellowship, the discipline of showing up, the commitment of being part of something. These are kind of intangible things that you want to pass on to particularly young people, but for all generations. So it's a neat thing we get to do. Can you share with us a pivotal moment in your life that music really had a strong impact on?

Yeah, no question. I had a tough moment in my life when I was 16. My parents had divorced and I lost my father suddenly, quite tragically. And my life could have gone two ways, I think, at that point. I could have just given up on faith and the army and the Lord or the Lord. But I chose to say, this is the worst day of my life.

From now on, I recommit to the Lord. Now, there were bumps and bruises along the way, my college life and experience. But there was a moment where my brass band were on a trip in England to another city and we were performing a weekend of concerts and we played a piece of music that included the chorus, come home, ye who are weary, come home. And I had to leave my seat as the principal trombone player and go kneel at the mercy seat during a band piece.

This is not something you would normally do. And I did. And at that moment, I reconnected my life to Christ and have never looked back. It's not always been easy, but I've never looked back in terms of my faith since that day. I'm going to just play you that song. Softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling. It goes like this.

It's beautiful. And so you can imagine at the end of this meeting and your trombone player gets up and prays at the altar and we had band sergeants. So people responsible for your spiritual worth came and prayed with me and told me to keep listening. And I was so grateful for the many mentors I had in my church. As I look back, I could see how the Lord used people in my life to redirect me and to help me to be patient with me.

And many of those were musicians in that brass band I was talking about. It was a community of people around me helping me through those difficult days. And I should always be grateful. And in fact, now I think about how can I be helpful to others that are going through similar things. Nick, thank you so much for joining us. And I think this was a great first guest to have for our new series, Crafted. So thank you.

Appreciate you, Chris, very much and enjoyed the opportunity. The Salvation Army's mission, Doing the Most Good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support.

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