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The English counter-tenor, Kevin Smith, studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama as an actor. After working for some years in theatre, television and films, he decided to concentrate on a career in music. He was soon established as a leading counter-tenor both on the opera stage and the concert platform.
His extensive choral experience includes singing with the Monteverdi Choir with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Schütz Chorale with Sir Roger Norrington, John Aldis Singers, Consort of Musicke, Pro Cantione Antiqua and London Pro Musica.
Kevin Smith has also sung a wide range of rôles in some of the major opera houses in the world, notably, Hamburg Staatsoper (Prince Go-Go in Le Grand Macabre); Opera Colon, Buenos Aires (Georg Frideric Handel’s Messiah and Purcell’s The Fairy Queen); L'Opéra Paris, (Le Grand Macabre); Scottish Opera, (Benjamin Britten’s Midsummer Night’s dream); English National Opera (Le Grand Macabre); Opera North; (Midsummer Night’s Dream); Drottningholm Opera, Stockholm, (G.F. Handel’s Tamerlano); Vlaamse Opera, Antwerp (Monteverdi’s Orfeo); Wexford Festival (Gluck’s Orpheo). He has also appeared at Covent Garden. In 1991 he performed the role of Bishop Baldwin in the world première of Sir Harrison Birtwhistle’s opera Gawain at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London.
Kevin Smith has given recitals, concert performances and radio broadcasts throughout the world. His work in renaissance and Baroque music is extensive with concerts and recitals as a soloist with many choirs and ensembles. He has also performed a very wide range of Italian, English and French repertoire from the renaissance, with the acclaimed ensembles London Pro Musica and Pro Cantione Antiqua.
Kevin Smith can be heard on many recordings, notably Birtwhistle's Gawain, Le Grand Macabre by Ligeti, Vespro della Beata Vergineof Monteverdi; Ode for St Cecilia's Day by Purcell, as well as numerous recordings with the ensembles London Pro Musica and Pro Cantione Antiqua.
With his exceptionally wide experience as an actor, singer, teacher of singing and drama, Kevin Smith is frequently asked to work with ensembles and choirs throughout Europe. He is an Associate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and has been a member of the voice faculty there and at the Conservatorium of Amsterdam, where as well as teaching first study singers, he worked in the Opera Academy with special reference to stagecraft and role preparation. Smith has a teaching studio in Amsterdam and also in Stockholm, where he is a guest teacher at the Kungliga Operaskolan. He also works as a voice coach with singers from the Estonian National Opera, the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre and also for the Kungliga Operan in Sweden. In September 2009 he joined the Chamber Music Department of Mälerdalen University in Västerås, working with singers and ensembles. During his career as a teacher he has been invited to give workshops and master-classes in many music conservatories throughout Europe, South America, Australia and New Zealand. He enjoys an international reputation as a voice coach and gives master-classes and workshops for performers throughout the world. Among his pupils: Colin Wilson (Counter-tenor). |
