Zoë Smith

Job Role: Head of Postgraduate Programmes (Music)

Department: Music

Honours: MA (Oxon), Certificate of Advanced Studies (RAM), ALCM, SFHEA

Biography

As an accompanist, Zoë Smith has worked extensively in the UK and internationally with singers and instrumentalists. A graduate of Oxford University and the Royal Academy of Music, she has performed in many of the principal London recital venues, as well as the Schubert-Saal in Vienna and Sala Nezahualcóyotl in Mexico City. She has received prizes in song accompaniment and has also specialised in flute repertoire, working in masterclasses and recitals with many leading flautists including Sarah Newbold, Alexa Still and the late Alain Marion and William Bennett, as well as recording three CDs for flute and piano.

Expertise

Since 1999, Zoë has worked at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, where she is now Head of Postgraduate Programmes (Music). As a pianist, she has performed with a range of distinguished visiting artists at College, including Michael Collins (clarinet), Michael Cox (flute) and Roderick Williams (baritone). In July 2015, she was awarded a Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.

Zoë is currently working in partnership with Tŷ Cerdd to research Welsh instrumental music of the 20th century, seeking to raise awareness of this rich repertoire and promote its performance amongst musicians in Wales and beyond. She has been collaborating with Tŷ Cerdd since 2016, working on performances of music from their archives, both personally and with students from RWCMD. In 2019, her CD of Welsh piano music, featuring 13 Welsh composers, was released by Tŷ Cerdd at the National Eisteddfod in Llanrwst. She continues to develop projects researching and performing Welsh music, in close association with the National Library of Wales. Her most recent output is the National Welsh Instrumental Music Keyboard Database, listing 880 Welsh keyboard works.

Zoë is a Trustee for the Mervyn Burtch Foundation and was a member of the European Opera Academy Artistic Council from 2018 to 2020. She presented ‘Making connections: using work-based learning to increase the confidence of conservatoire music students’ at the Association of European Conservatoires LATIMPE conference in Oslo, October 2018.

Notable Achievements

Zoë is an experienced External Examiner, working with the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (Guildhall Artist Masters) and the Royal Marines Music School (BMus). She was a panelist for the piano category for BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2015 and 2022, an adjudicator for the Abertawe Festival for Young Musicians in 2014, 2017, and 2019, and is a regular coach and adjudicator for Dyfed Young Musicians.