ANAM Set 2025 Composer: Work Title and Instrumentation to be announced.
This ANAM Set commission was generously supported by the Anthony and Sharon Lee Foundation
About the composer:
Margery Smith is an Australian composer-performer and creative music workshop facilitator with a special interest in collaborative work. She is a curious musician who explores new music and improvisation with works that cross boundaries. Margery studied composition with Malcolm Singer at the London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama and in Australia with Richard Vella. Issues of social justice and ecology are themes that inspire her music career with works such as Humanity Washed Ashore for Solo Bass Clarinet. Recent 2019 career highlights are the premiere by Hourglass Ensemble of her concerto for flute, Everything I touch for Flute and Chamber Ensemble and the opportunity to take part in the Composing in the Wilderness program and Fairbanks Summer Music Festival in Alaska’s Denali National Park, USA.
As a teaching artist Margery has worked with students of all ages and abilities, creating music that is fun and engaging to perform which also engages an informal pedagogical focus. In 2004 Margery was Composer in Residence for Sydney Youth Orchestra, which was special joy for her to compose for these young musicians. Until recently, Margery was Composer in Residence at Sydney’s International Grammar School. During that time Margery mentored senior school Years 11 and 12 composers and created several large-scale works for the ensembles at IGS.
As a performer Margery has had many lives performing around the world on clarinets and saxophones in Europe, South-East Asia and the USA. Orchestral position include Associate Principal Clarinet with the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Senior Lecturer in Clarinet and Saxophone at the University of Newcastle Conservatorium of Music where she completed her PhD titled: Improvisation as a catalyst for collaborative musical thinking and composition