Gabriella Smith was born December 26, 1991, in Berkeley, California.[2] As a teenager, she was very interested in biology, ecology, and conservation, and she spent five years volunteering on a songbird research project in Point Reyes, California.[3][4]
Smith began learning the violin at age seven and began composing soon thereafter.[3] Later, she was mentored by John Adams as a part of his Young Composers Program in Berkeley.[5] She received her Bachelors of Music in composition from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in 2013 where she studied with David Ludwig.[6][7] She attended Princeton University for graduate school[7] and has since been living in Marseille, France;[8] Oslo, Norway; and Seattle, USA.[7]
Her piece Tumblebird Contrails was commissioned by the Pacific Harmony Foundation and premiered in 2014 by the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, conducted by Marin Alsop.[9] In January 2019, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by John Adams, performed the piece as part of its centennial season.[10]
Her string quartet Carrot Revolution was written in 2015 for the Aizuri Quartet, having been commissioned by the Barnes Foundation for their exhibition The Order of Things. In November 2019, it was performed by members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic as a part of their Green Umbrella concert series.[5][11]
The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra commissioned Gabriella Smith, as part of their 125th Anniversary season, ƒ(x) = sin²x - 1/x. It was first performed in September 2019, conducted by Eun Sun Kim. Music Program Notes, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, April 2021, when Carrot Revolution, adapted for string ensemble, was performed.
The Curtis Symphony Orchestra commissioned a work from Smith, set to be performed on its domestic tour in January–February 2020, culminating in a performance in Carnegie Hall, conducted by Osmo Vänskä[6][12]
Smith's 2019 composition Bioluminescence Chaconne had its world premiere with the Oregon Symphony in Portland on February 8, 2020.[13]
Her organ concerto Breathing Forests was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic for organist James McVinnie and premiered in February 2022 by LA Phil and James McVinnie, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen.[14]
Smith has received a BMI Student Composer Award (2018), an ASCAP Leo Kaplan Award (2014), three ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, and the Theodore Presser Foundation Music Award (2012). She has also won the 2015 American Modern Ensemble Composition Competition and the 2009 Pacific Musical Society Composition Competition.[7]
In 2021, her debut album Lost Coast in collaboration with cellist Gabriel Cabezas was released on the Icelandic record label Bedroom Community, produced by violist Nadia Sirota and recorded at Greenhouse Studios in Reykjavík in 2019.[19][20][21]
2016 PRISM Quartet: The Curtis Project—XAS Records, featuring Spring/Neap
Classical music
