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The English tenor and artistic director, Angus Smith, was always into music - the usual school choirs, school orchestras, and so on - and was a very keen trumpeter, though he never saw himself going down that route full time. However, it was almost a spontaneous thought to give singing a go and, without perhaps realising the course he was setting out on, he managed to gain a choral scholarship to St John's College, Cambridge, where he read history. He got a choral award. Still, he very much enjoyed the work, specialising in American history and ended up with a respectable degree. After that he undertook a post-graduate certificate in education, and then post-graduate vocal studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.
Since then Angus Smith has been singing full time and enjoying it for almost all the time. He has been lucky enough to work with some excellent groups, including the Monteverdi Choir (Director: John Eliot Gardiner), Taverner Consort (Director: Andrew Parrott), The Tallis Scholars (Director: Peter Phillips), and Gabrieli Consort (Director: Paul McCreesh); and some top-rate conductors, and has also done his fair share of solo work around the world.
Angus Smith is a member of the Orlando Consort (as 2nd Tenor) and also does a fair amount of the day to day administration for the ensemble. In the last year he has been given opportunities to indulge his interest in designing and delivering programmes in new and very exciting directions. In September 2009 he joined the Oundle International Festival as their Creative Projects Associate, working with a specific brief to develop new projects that would have education and community applications, thereby allowing new audiences to appreciate and participate in classical music. In this post he has collaborated with a range of instrumentalists, singers and composers including jazz quartet the Perfect Houseplants, young British composer Tarik O’Regan, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and the tabla player Kuljit Bhamra. Equally committed to new music, Angus has performed thirty-one world premieres in the last ten years alone with The Orlando Consort.
In August 2010 he took up an appointment as Artistic Director of 'Music in the Round', a Sheffield-based organisation that promotes chamber music on a regional and national basis. Having always thought of himself as being first and foremost being a 'chamber musician' he feels that he already has a strong affinity with MitR's ambitions to develop an appreciation of all the potential manifestations of this musical genre, from what might be described as standard classical repertoire through to wider and even more liberating interpretations that touch on numerous and diverse repertoires.
Angus Smith is married to Jenny, who works in the music business as an event organiser, and has two daughters, Hannah and Megan. |
