Biography

“An exceptional performer who plays this music with commitment and sensitivity……….……………an impeccable performance”

Classical Lost and Found

“A special shoutout for the player of of Siegfried’s horn-call.”

Guardian review of Siegfried at Longborough Festival Opera

Mark Smith trained at the Royal College of Music in London where he was awarded the RCM’s Douglas Moore Horn Prize. Upon graduation, he joined the busy freelance scene in London, working with the various BBC orchestras, Royal Opera House, English National Opera, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, working in recording studios and playing for shows in London’s West End. He appeared with Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt and Music Theatre Wales and founded a wind octet (Harmoniemusic of London) which made ground-breaking recordings of the virtuosic Wind Octets by Mozart’s contemporary Joseph Myslivecek, for Virgin Classics. In 1998, Mark joined Esbjerg Ensemble in Denmark where he remained for five years before spending a year with Denmark’s National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Copenhagen before returning to the freelance scene in the UK in 2004. As a chamber musician, Mark has been a frequent guest for Fine Arts Brass and the Haffner Winds and made the world premiere recording of Joseph Holbrooke’s rediscovered Horn Trio from 1907, for Naxos Records. In 2012 Mark played the Solo Horn part in the World Premiere of Stockhausen’s extraordinary and bizarre opera, Mittwoch aus Licht for Birmingham Opera and is playing the Siegfried Horn calls for the current production of Wagner’s Ring at Longborough Festival Opera.

Mark continues to travel widely and has given concerts, recitals and masterclasses from the University of California, Santa Barbara in the west to the University of Beijing in the east and in 2016, gave what is likely to have been the first (and only) ever performance of Richard Strauss’ Second Horn Concerto on the island of Borneo. He returned to Denmark in 2018 and established the Brydekær Music Studio in Southern Jutland, just across the border from Germany. He divides his time between Denmark and the UK where he continues to perform and teach.