Musician selling CDs to fund trip

Credit: Contributed Photo

Nathan Smith is selling copies of a CD he recorded to finance a trip to Syria.

By: JCFloridan Staff | Jackson County Floridan
Published: June 13, 2010

A former Marianna resident is putting his musical talent to use in an attempt to finance a month-long mission trip to Syria.
Rather than asking for outright donations, he has cut a five-song instrumental CD that he’s selling for $10 each. He’s attempting to raise $4,000 in sales, and hoping to do it in a matter of weeks so that he can be in Syria by July.
An accomplished pianist, Nathan Smith, 25, offers his own arrangements of “Canon in D,” “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” and Irish Wedding Song.” He also performs a medley of traditional hymns, and a piece he wrote himself called “Untitled Song.”
Smith attended Marianna High School and graduated from Victory Christian School in Sneads.
His mother, Karen Smith, is a music teacher at Golson Elementary School and is helping spread the word about his CD. She has 300 copies for sale, and can be reached at 482-7123.
Karen Smith said that while the whole family is musically inclined, she and Nathan’s father, Tim, can take no credit for getting their son started on piano. Her instrument is the clarinet and Tim’s is the trumpet
She said that Nathan somehow picked up the piano on his own, and quickly, when he was just past kindergarten.
The family was on a mission trip in the Bahamas one summer around 1985, and Nathan played daily with the children from the school the adults were renovating.
She walked in one day to check on him, and found that he was playing the melody and chords to a song he’d heard the other kids singing.
His mastery of the instrument continued to grow over the years, and now Nathan hopes share his love of music with youngsters in Syria.
In May, he graduated from Florida State University with a degree in Middle Eastern studies.
On his mission trip, he will teach music and work on projects at the monastery where he’ll live. In his “immersion experience,” he will be expected to speak only Arabic, with fluency the primary purpose of his trip.
Eventually, he hopes to settle into missionary work full time.
He and his wife lived in Sneads for a time, but they now reside in Tallahassee.
To hear samples of the CD, order it, or to read more about his trip, visit nathansmithcd.blogspot.com and click on the link leading to his web page. There, visitors will find his e-mail address and other information.