Fred Emory Smith is a composer, arranger, and sound designer whose career bridges the marching arts and the worlds of film, television, and interactive media.
Fred began his drum corps career as a snare drummer, performing with The Academy in 2001, the Santa Clara Vanguard Cadets in 2002, and the Santa Clara Vanguard from 2003–2005.
Fred currently serves as Sound Designer and Music Consultant for the Blue Devils and as Sound Designer and Music Arranger for RCC Indoor Percussion. He served as Percussion Arranger and Sound Designer for The Academy in 2023 before becoming the corps’ Music Arranger for the 2024 and 2025 seasons. From 2013–2017, Fred served as Front Ensemble Arranger and Sound Designer for the Vanguard Cadets. From 2018–2022, he expanded his responsibilities to include arranging for the full percussion ensemble while continuing to oversee sound design. His work with the corps contributed to five DCI Open Class Championships. Fred has also composed and arranged for numerous nationally recognized high school marching bands, indoor percussion ensembles, concert percussion ensembles, and wind ensembles.
Fred earned a degree in Film Scoring from Berklee College of Music in 2008, where he received the Doug Timm Award for Outstanding Musicianship in Film Scoring.
Fred served as an additional composer and arranger on Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights and as a music arranger for the 87th Academy Awards. His other film and television credits include Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Star Wars: Forces of Destiny, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., The CW’s Supergirl, and Netflix’s Go! Go! Cory Carson. His score for the feature film Rock ’n’ Roll Eddie received Best Film Music at the 2019 Burbank International Film Festival.
His recent work includes Andrew Niccol’s feature film I, Object, Dan Tran’s The Guardian Demon, as well as arranging and orchestrating for A.R. Rahman’s latest live orchestral tour and for Josh Groban.
Fred lives in Gilbert, Arizona, with his wife and their three children.