Linda Catlin Smith was born in New York in 1957, and has lived in Toronto since 1981. Her works have been performed by many ensembles and soloists, including: Arraymusic, Vancouver New Music, Eve Egoyan, Andrew Smith, Anthony de Mare, Colin Tilney, Louis Goldstein, Philip Thomas, Tafelmusik, Penderecki Quartet, the Bozzini Quartet, Vancouver Symphony, CBC Radio Orchestra, and the Banff Centre, among many others. Her opera, Facing South, was premiered by Tapestry New Opera (libretto by Don Hannah) in 2003. Her music can be found on recordings by: Arraymusic, Eve Egoyan, Barbara Pritchard, Continuum, Evergreen Club Gamelan, Les Coucous Bénévoles, and Joseph Petric, many of these available on the Artifact Music label, which also released her CD, Memory Forms. Her work as a composer has been supported by The Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, The Toronto Arts Council, the Laidlaw Foundation, the K.M. Hunter Foundation and a Chalmers Arts Fellowship. She was awarded the 2005 Jules Léger Prize for her work Garland (composed for Tafelmusik). In addition to her work as an independent composer, she was Artistic Director of Arraymusic in Toronto from 1988 to 1993. Since 1992, she has been a member of the multidisciplinary performance collective, URGE. She has taught composition privately and as part of the composition faculty at Wilfrid Laurier University.

On As you pass a reflective surface (1991):
"I composed this brief quartet for the Accordes string quartet in Toronto; the piece has also been performed by the Modern Quartet, and has been recorded by the Penderecki Quartet. This is my second of three (so far) string quartets. I think I will always return to the string quartet medium - it is such a beautiful and subtle instrumental form. In the composing of this work, I was thinking of the string sound as a changeable surface, reflecting an elusive image. The title comes from a letter I received from someone far away."