THE SHORT BIO: Moira Smiley, singer-composer, leads moira smiley & VOCO, travels the world as a soloist and creates new work for dance, theatre and film. Her voice can be heard on a wide variety of media, including feature films, television (BBC, PBS), NPR, and on over 40 recordings. Her recent albums “blink,” “rua” and "circle, square, diamond & flag" feature spare, vocally driven collections of warped traditionals and new song. She has sung with leading ensembles and artists around the world, including Paul Hillier’s Theater of Voices, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, KITKA Vocal Ensemble and New World Symphony. Featured at Lincoln Center, UCLALive, Royal Festival Hall, and music festivals across the U.S. and Canada, Moira has received praise from Billboard to Gramophone. While studying piano performance and Early Music at Indiana University, Moira was represented by IMGArtists Agency and toured extensively with her vocal group, VIDA. Praised for her musical depth and noted as a musical "shape-shifter," Moira premieres new art song, opera, and physical theater. She also explores the depths of early American, Irish and Balkan traditional song. Moira is in high demand as a music director and vocal coach—giving master classes in vocal technique, traditional styles, physicality and improvisation. She composes for vocal ensembles around the world—her song “Stand in that River” is performed by thousands of choral ensembles and singers of all stripes.

THE LONG BIO: Moira Smiley works internationally as a composer-vocalist. Traveling from her hilly Los Angeles perch, she leads her fiery roots vocal-band, moira smiley & VOCO, travels the world as a soloist in early and traditional music and creates new work with dance, theatre and film. Moira was born in rural Vermont, moved to Indiana to pursue a piano performance degree at IU School of Music, and finished with a degree in Early Music Vocal Performance and several recordings for Harmonia Mundi USA with Paul Hillier. Moira fell in love with Bloomington, traveling by music and the art of performance whilst at IU, and toured with her vocal quartet, VIDA, singing a cappella folk song from Eastern Europe and various other vibrant harmony traditions. VIDA came to be represented by IMG Artists, recorded three CDs of folk and original songs, and had an exciting seven year career that culminated in concerts at Lincoln Center and other prestigious fine arts and folk venues in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

Moira’s mother tongue is probably traditional folk song. In 2002 she moved to California to deepen explorations of Eastern European vocal music with the renowned KITKA ensemble. KITKA's rigorous touring and recordings combine traditional songs and ground-breaking new works like “Rusalka: Between the Worlds” with Ukraine's Mariana Sadovska. Studying Irish Sean Nós (old-style) singing and Appalachian ballad and dance-song began to combine with several stints in Europe doing physical and site-specific theater with various companies (see links). Moira has been Musical Director for Shakespeare Santa Cruz and renowned dance-theater productions, and seeks sad clowns and stilts everywhere. She recorded a solo CD, “Rua”, of Irish, Appalachian and her own songs – “rua” means “red” in gaelic. With moira smiley & VOCO, Moira finds home for her songwriting and arranging for four female voices, cello, banjo, percussive movement and accordion. Plaintive, modal, communicative, lush vocal music makes VOCO a growing favorite for both fine arts and festival audiences - who love the improvisation and folk roots. New, Early, Experimental art music is a constant teacher and point of return. She enjoys challenges from Stockhausen's "Stimmung" to the role of "Sorceress" in Purcell's 1690 opera "Dido & Aeneas" with The Concord Ensemble, and continues to perform a variety of art song programs in collaborations near and far. Growing up as an uber-serious little pianist, Moira's early loves were Béla Bartók, Debussy and Shostakovich - right next to Fats Waller and early american shape-note singing. Her love of Bartók's short pieces for piano inspires her ongoing project "Bartók Sings". Moira taught a semester at University of Birmingham (UK), sung and recorded with the acclaimed Theater of Voices, Fretwork Consort of Viols, The Dufay Collective, and Sinfonye - much inspired by her collaborations with English singer, Vivien Ellis. In 2002, she won the Barbara Thornton Memorial Scholarship for Medieval Music, given by the Sequentia Ensemble, and recorded Disc three of the Complete Hildegard Works with Sinfonye (Celestial Harmonies).