Joy Smith

'So improvisatory and spontaneous. Very very exciting.’  BBC Radio 3

I first met a harp when I was 6 yrs old. When, at the age of 8, I inherited that very same harp, it felt as if the harp had chosen me rather than the other way round. I'm still amazed that that generous and formidable lady left me her precious harp - she was neither family friend nor relative - and the harp has taken me all over the world since then, becoming an explorer of music and sound of all kinds.

Born in Cornwall, I studied harp, flute, piano and harpsichord at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester. A lover of language I went on to study English at Oxford University before returning to the music world and gaining the United Kingdom Harp Association Prize.

My eclectic taste in music has led me to play in an unusual array of venues from the Royal Albert Hall to the Glastonbury Festival and with groups such as The Gabrieli Consort, I Fagiolini, The Sixteen and the New London Consort; the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Glyndebourne Opera with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Opera North; the Radio Science  Orchestra, Orbital, David Gray, The Joy Formidable and Sophie Ellis Bextor and as a soloist at the Bayerische Staats Oper in Munich. I enjoy teaching and giving masterclasses at the Guildhall school of Music and Drama and the Ibacus International Harp Course and I am also a percussionist and story teller...for grown ups as well as for my two beautiful little daughters!