The popular Musical Cafe at the Center in the Woods, located along Route 88 south of California, Pa., will offer a unique program 2 p.m. Wednesday when Darrell Smith takes string music back to the basics.
Smith, a Brownsville resident and California University of Pennsylvania industrial technology professor, will demonstrate the tools and process he used to build the violin, viola and guitar he will then play at the afternoon cafe program. The audience will be treated to music styles from country fiddling to classical by Smith, who has been a musician longer than he has been a teacher.
This multifaceted university professor grew up on a farm where he had access to the tools in his father's tool shed. He was "turned on" to woodworking by Robert Cullen, his junior high industrial arts teacher for the Counshannock School District in Sagamore.
Graduating from Elderton High School, Smith came to the then California State College which was regionally recognized for its industrial arts education program. He received both his bachelor's and master's degrees in industrial arts at Cal State before going to Texas A&M for his doctorate. He returned to teach at his alma mater in 1968 and has been teaching at the now California University of Pennsylvania since.
The versatile teacher has taught photography, graphic arts and for the last 20 years, computer aided drafting.
Making music and musical instruments as well as forays into architecturally correct dollhouses for his now grown daughters, all represent after-school activities of this creative man. He has also made rocking horses; one, of which, he has in his home is adult size. He enjoys riding it with any one of his five grandchildren for whom he also made cradles.
Smith looks on his handmade stringed instruments as the ultimate woodworking project and achievement. "They are too labor intensive to make and sell," said Smith, who is currently working on another violin. He has been known to play his guitar and sing to entertain dinner guests at Caileigh's of Uniontown and the former Brownsville Caileigh's restaurant owned by his daughter and son-in-law, Stacey and Joseph Carei.
"Smith's efforts fit right in with the goal of the center's six-year-old Musical Cafe: to offer quality music, not just quantity, in a relaxed setting (the center's spacious dining room). We are happy to showcase such outstanding local talent as Darrell," said Karen Primm, cafe coordinator and the center's director of planning and development.
Past musical cafe features have included vocal and instrumental music such as fiddle, ethnic, county, classical and jazz.
The cost of this listening and learning experience is $2. Light refreshments will be served following the program in the center lounge. For added information or to make a reservation, call the center at 724-938-3554.
