Moira Smiley

Biography

Moira Smiley, singer-composer, leads her powerhouse vocal-band, moira smiley & VOCO, travels the world as a soloist in traditional music, and creates new work for dance, theatre and film. Her songwriting stirs playful percussive movement with hair-raising rebel-harmony. Moira's group is the a cappella champion of the U.S., but you'll find Moira singing/playing on her own, with VOCO and with the Irish/Scots band, Molly's Revenge at such music havens as Kate Wolf Festival, UCLALive, California W...

Moira Smiley, singer-composer, leads her powerhouse vocal-band, moira smiley & VOCO, travels the world as a soloist in traditional music, and creates new work for dance, theatre and film. Her songwriting stirs playful percussive movement with hair-raising rebel-harmony. Moira's group is the a cappella champion of the U.S., but you'll find Moira singing/playing on her own, with VOCO and with the Irish/Scots band, Molly's Revenge at such music havens as Kate Wolf Festival, UCLALive, California WorldFest, Mission Folk Festival, LOTUS Festival, Lincoln Center, Cerritos Center, The Getty Center, San Luis Mozart Festival and many other listening rooms around the U.S. and in Canada. Originally from Vermont, Moira went to the acclaimed IU School of Music as a pianist and graduated with an Early Music Vocal Performance degree. While in school, Moira founded VIDA, who came to be represented by IMGArtists Agency and culminated with performances at Lincoln Center and UCLA Live. Moira sings and records medieval and baroque music – for Harmonia Mundi USA with Paul Hillier’s Theater of Voices, singing operatic role of The Sorceress in Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas”. Moira was musical director of acclaimed Shakespeare Santa Cruz in 2006, and premiered Ukrainian new folk-opera with KITKA. The constant thread in all of Moira’s work is performance that combines emotional, virtuosic, communicative singing with old songs, joyous improvisation and physical wit. Her mother-tongue is folksong – especially old songs of Appalachia, Ireland and Eastern Europe. She has won many awards for her study of voice in culture – always entwined with her composing and improvisation work – this year, receiving The Durfee and American Composers Forum grants for her large-scale arranging project of Bela Bartok’s “Mikrokosmos”. Moira has been teaching vocal technique, traditional singing styles and improvisation at U.S. and European universities and composing for vocal ensembles from here to Tanzania – her song “Stand in that River” is sung worldwide by thousands of choral ensembles and singers of all stripes. Her albums “blink” (with VOCO) and “rua” (solo) are fiercely spare and elegantly lush collections of playfully warped traditionals and new songcraft. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.