Kirstie Smith is a English musician, composer, examiner, director and arranger.
Her choral arrangements are wholly unique and crafted with love and care to delight both singers and audiences alike. A deep understanding of vocalists' needs, combined with her vast performance experience and musical creativity ensures her scores are of the highest professional quality and easily accessible to all. Her arrangements of rock and pop classics, folk songs, musical theatre showstoppers, hidden gems and uplifting gospel numbers are performed by choirs, vocal ensembles and performance arts groups in the UK and Internationally, She is regularly commissioned to arrange songs for special choral events and has recently embarked on composing and arranging for solo piano.
Classically trained, Kirstie began playing piano aged, later studying piano, violin, singing and composition at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama under the guidance of Sir Michael Roll, Simon Weinmann and Celia Vajda, graduating with a BA Honours degree. Kirstie also holds LTCL and LRSL Diplomas plus her PGCE/PCET. Kirstie is Chief Examiner for RSL Rockschool
Piano, Keys, Vocals and Performance Diplomas, plus a classical music specialist and syllabus consultant for RSL Awards. She is currently involved in RSL's forthcoming
NEW Piano Syllabus 2025.Musical Director for
Swindon Male Voice Choir, she loves arranging songs for the men and other local choirs. Kirstie directs regular choral concerts and music performances throughout the year, often combining the wonderful male voices with other talented musicians and singers to fundraise for local charities and community projects. She is also the newly appointed Musical Director of South Wales Male Choir's English rehearsal group, Cor Meibion de Cymru.
An experienced music and performance arts educator, Kirstie has taught in a variety of formal and informal settings since 1989, helping to develop and nurture students of all ages and abilities. A professional freelance musician for over 40 years, (gigging to live audiences in a professional dance-band at 14 years old.) She's performed to a vast array of audiences worldwide in differing musical settings; from classical chamber ensembles, jazz combos, strict-tempo dance bands, theatre orchestras and piano accompanist to tribute acts and cover bands, leading her own successful party band for over 20 years.
Kirstie loves all genres of music and has a penchant for film scores. Her work is also heavily influenced by popmasters of melody and harmony (Simon and Garfunkle, Neil Sedaka,The Everly Brothers, The Who, Abba, Queen, Carole King, James Taylor, The Beatles, Bryan Adams, Billy Joel, Supertramp, Stevie Wonder and so on...). She enjoys listening to a wide variety of musical genres - particularly 70s and 80s mixtapes!