Moira Smiley works internationally as a composer-vocalist. Based in Los Angeles, she leads her fiery roots vocal-band, Moira Smiley & VOCO, travels the world as a soloist in early and traditional music and creates new work with dance, theatre and film. Moira was born in Vermont,...
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Moira Smiley works internationally as a composer-vocalist. Based in Los Angeles, she leads her fiery roots vocal-band, Moira Smiley & VOCO, travels the world as a soloist in early and traditional music and creates new work with dance, theatre and film. Moira was born in Vermont, moved to Indiana to pursue a piano performance degree at IU School of Music, and finished with a degree in Early Music Vocal Performance, having studied voice with Thomas Binkley, Paul Elliott, Paul Hillier and Alan Bennett. While at Indiana University, Moira toured with her vocal quartet, VIDA, singing a cappella folk song from Eastern Europe and various other vibrant harmony traditions. VIDA was represented by IMG Artists, recorded three CDs of traditional and original songs, and had an exciting seven year career that culminated in concerts at Lincoln Center and other prestigious fine arts and folk venues in the U.S., Canada and Europe.
Moira’s mother tongue is probably traditional folk song. She moved to California to sing with KITKA Eastern European Vocal Ensemble, and continues to work with KITKA – recently premiering the new folk-opera “Rusalka: Between the Worlds” that was launched in Ukraine and the U.S. with Mariana Sadovska. Moira continues to study Irish Sean Nós (old-style) singing and Appalachian ballad and dance-song. She recorded a solo CD, “Rua”, of Irish, Appalachian and her own songs – “rua” means “red” in gaelic. With VOCO, Moira fuses a new sound with voices, banjo, cello and percussion that is rooted in traditional song – in 2006 VOCO embarks on a project of arranging Bela Bartók’s “Mikrokosmos” piano miniatures for voices – recently premiered at Disney Hall/CalArts’ REDCAT Theater.
In the early music world, Moira taught a semester at University of Birmingham (UK), toured and recorded with the acclaimed Theatre of Voices, Fretwork Consort of Viols, The Dufay Collective, Sinfonye and The Concord Ensemble. In 2001 and 2002, she won Barbara Thornton Memorial Scholarship for Medieval Music, given by the Sequentia Ensemble, and recorded Disc three of the Complete Hildegard Works with Sinfonye (Celestial Harmonies). More recently, she sings the role of "Sorceress" in Purcell's opera "Dido & Aeneas" with Musica Angelica to open The Getty Villa. Moira was 'the voice' for BBC/PBS Sir David Attenborough's famous "The Life of Birds" and Marie Antoinette’s voice in feature film "The Affair of the Necklace,” She continues to record for various other film and television productions.
Moira’s been writing music since the age of six – focusing on voices-as-instruments, and in harmony. Her recent commissions have been by choral ensembles, dance and theatre companies. In Fall, 2006 she will premiere two voice & movement pieces with TripDance Theatre at the venerable Ford Amphitheater in Los Angeles. A few of her songs are being sung by thousands of high school and college students across the U.S.! Moira’s soundtracks for St. Louis-based dance-theater company Gash/Voigt and AnnonyArts have produced two lush CDs called “Sacred Ground and “Changing Woman” – the latter written for masked choir and dancers.
Moira co-directs and teaches at Ooolation! Singing Camp (California) and other performing arts programs for singers like the Swannanoah Gathering and Worldsongs Camp.
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