30th Anniversary Celebration of Matt Smith at Arrow Street Arts
Singer-Songwriter Rose Cousins is enlisting a bevy of talented friends to honor a man who has helped cement Passim’s legacy as a pre-eminent folk music listening room. Matt Smith started volunteering at Passim 30 years ago. He’s now the Managing Director and has helped launch countless careers through his dedication, unstoppable hard work, and passion for all things music and musicians. Patrons can expect plenty of guest appearances and hilarious stories during this special night.
All tickets have a $3 processing fee and a $2 preservation fee. The $3 processing fee is waived for tickets purchased at our box office.
Matt Smith
Matt Smith was a patron of Club Passim for two years and a volunteer at the Club for three months before he began working at Club Passim as a performance manager in the summer of 1995. Two years later, he became a full-time manager. He has also worked for Young/Hunter Management (Peter Mulvey, Chris Smither, Dar Williams, Richard Shindell) and was one of the founders of FolkWeb, a now-defunct, online folk-merchandise store.
Since beginning his career in the music world, Matt has been on panels and advisory committees at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, the International Folk Alliance, and the Northeast Regional Folk Alliance. He has worked as a tour manager and sound engineer for the singer-songwriter collaborative, Live From New York (Edie Carey, Teddy Goldstein, Anne Heaton, and Andrew Kerr) and the Celtic band Halali (Hanneke Cassel, Laura Cortese, Lissa Schneckenburger, and Flynn Cohen). Matt has also been a stage emcee at the Falcon Ridge and the Newport Folk Festivals, and he is the founder of Club Passim’s campfire. festival. Matt currently teaches Venue Management at the Berklee College of Music.
As the Managing Director of Passim, Matt’s duties include booking and developing new talent, booking and coordinating campfire. festival, and booking special events. Matt also manages several shows at the Club per week.
Rose Cousins
- Folk
- Singer/Songwriter
Acclaimed Canadian folk singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Rose Cousins released her new album, Conditions of Love, Vol. 1, on March 14, 2025. With this news, she shares her uplifting new single and one she calls the album’s cornerstone, “I Believe in Love (and it’s very hard).”
On her new album, Rose holds her listeners’ hands as she guides them on a journey through the “conditions of love.” Ever the emotional explorer, the Nova-Scotia-based artist seeks truth, in all its imperfection, in the depths of humans’ most complicated of emotions: love. The journey results in a striking clarity, and it’s the gift of that clarity that brings on surprising tears.
Rose shares, “Love feels great and makes us ridiculous. It’s tiring and intense, joyful and devastating. Falling in love, being in love and staying in love are all such different things. Being human is emotionally complicated enough without attempting to relate to another who is just as complex, and in the most vulnerable of arenas: romance. Love is wondrous and absurd (and very hard). Humour helps.”
Co-produced with trusted friend and longtime bandmate Joshua Van Tassel, Conditions of Love, Vol. 1 sees Rose return to her first love, the piano. “Piano is where I feel the most connected. It’s the best partner in expressing the emotion I’m mining,” she shares. She first introduced the upcoming body of work with the gorgeous, piano-driven ballad “Forget Me Not,” followed by the slow-burning, nostalgic “Borrowed Light.”
Rose Cousins’ songwriting plumbs the depths of the human condition. Her work has garnered her two JUNO Awards (2013’s We Have Made a Spark & 2021’s Bravado), two Canadian Folk Music Awards, eleven East Coast Music Awards and one Grammy nomination (2018’s Natural Conclusion), along with praise from the likes of the CBC, No Depression, LA Times, Associated Press, Billboard, Folk Alley, and NPR, who raved “Cousins’ disarmingly fluid vocal tone has the ability to convey the most internalized feelings without an ounce of fuss.” Over the years, she has shared stages with Patty Griffin, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Jann Arden, Kathleen Edwards, Joe Henry and Anais Mitchell, and her music has fittingly underscored scenes from notable TV shows including Grey’s Anatomy, Fire Country, Batwoman and Heartland.
