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The English soprano, Ella Marshall Smith, completed her Bachelor of Music degree with Honours in Classical Vocal Performance at the University of Auckland, New Zealand in 2014 under the tutelage of Dr. Morag Atchison (2010-2014). She has sung in masterclasses with Dennis O’Neill, Håkan Hagegård and Nicholas Isherwood and has studied with Catrin Johnsson, Laura Aikin, Martina Rüping and Janet Williams. Her awards and competitions include the Marie D’Albini Scholarship (2012), ILT National Young Performer of the Year Awards - Semi-finalist 2012), Dame Malvina Major Arts Excellence Award (2013), Wellington Aria Competition - Finalist (2015), Anne Bellam Scholarship (2016).
Ella Smith is a fine recitalist and an intuitive performer with a comprehensive background in both choral and solo singing. As a soloist, her opera engagements include the role of 2nd Woman in a radical re-staging of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with Unstuck Opera and the role of Adele in Die Fledermaus with Opera Factory, New Zealand.
Ella Smith also has extensive experience as a choral singer. She has sung with New Zealand’s premiere professional choir, Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir, as well as the New Zealand Youth Choir and the Auckland Chamber Choir. Most recently, she was an Academy scholar with the Rundfunkchor Berlin for 2018. Highlights of her choral career so far include performances of Arvo Pärt’s Te Deum at the Konzerthaus Berlin with Ivan Fisher, J.S. Bach’s St Matthew Passion (BWV 244) under the baton of Stephen Layton, Maurice Duruflé's Requiem with Robin Ticciati, and Wagner’s Parsifal with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Simon Rattle in the Philharmonie Berlin.
Ella Smith has performed a number of operas with the New Zealand Opera Chorus (2013-2015), including Tosca, La Traviata, Madama Butterfly, The Flying Dutchman and Igor Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress. In the early music field, she has worked with the Age of Discovery ensemble (2012-2015), an organisation dedicated to period instrument performance of pre-19th Century music in New Zealand, directed by early music specialist James Tibbles.
Since 2016, Ella Smith has been a freelance singer in Berlin. |
