Cori Smith is a London/Huddersfield based musician and composer in her third year studying composition at Trinity Laban Conservatoire for Music and Dance under the tuition of Laura Jurd. Her ensembles communicate and connect with audiences, drawing them into a world of entrancing and thought-provoking sounds. She has performed and had her pieces played at in venues across the UK and Sweden.

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Introduced to folk music through playing in the National Youth Folk Ensemble (NYFE) under Sam Sweeney’s direction, Cori and five other NYFE members formed the band ‘Don’t Feed the Peacocks’ who went on to be BBC Young Musician of the Year finalists in 2019. Having studied classical viola and composition at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, Swedish folk music at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and most recently a world music programme in Sweden under the tuition of Ale Möller, Cori is currently developing her own voice,  honing her compositional style, fusing a love for classical, folk, jazz, pop, contemporary music and anything that catches her ears.

 

Cori’s compositions make sense of the world around her, from grief at the destruction of trees and our planet, and the refugee crisis, to the magical feeling of cold stars on bare feet and dancing on the moon.

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Sharing music and stories is a huge part of her life; inspiration comes from many different places, people and plants she meets along the way. She has travelled, with viola, to the Sweden, Balkans, Nepal, Ireland and Britain, sharing and absorbing tales and tunes from these different cultures. All the different grooves and feelings from the passed down traditions filters into the music she writes and plays.

 

A passionate educator, trained by the English Folk Dance and Song Society Cori has enjoyed teaching folk workshops around the country.