‘Gabriella Smart has been a champion of contemporary music nationally for over 20 years…’– Chris Reid, Music Australia
Gabriella Smart’s unique art practice embraces performance, improvisation, composition, advocacy, education, commissioning and curation. She is a leading advocate of new music in Australia, with sustained contribution over 30 years. Her expertise as an Australian representative artist has been recognised with numerous awards and grants. Gabriella holds a PhD in Music from the University of Adelaide and is an active researcher with publications on new music, curation and Australian musical history.
‘… sheer poetry… an enlightening glimpse into the rarefied realm of contemporary art music.’– The Australian
An internationally recognised multi-award-winning pianist specialising in classical and new music, Gabriella has performed extensively in Australia and internationally, premiering over 80 new works for solo piano by Australian and international composers in Australia, Europe and China, and collaborating with musicians as diverse as Elena Kats Chernin, Cat Hope, Lisa Gerrard, Constantine Koukias, Cathy Milliken, Brian Ritchie, Jon Rose, and Erkki Veltheim.
‘…the fearless Gabriella Smart pounding, caressing and cajoling beautiful and extraordinary sounds from the piano…’– The Australian
‘Smart’s performance was mesmerising…’– The West Australian
Gabriella’s playing has been described as ‘meltingly beautiful’ by The Australian. She has performed widely as a soloist throughout Australia, and internationally, promoting the works of Australian composers. Gabriella has performed in the Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide International Festivals, MONA MOFO, TURA (Perth) and in Europe and China (Forbidden Palace Beijing, Shanghai Conservatory, Lyceum Theatre Shanghai). In 2010, she represented Australia at the World Expo in Shanghai. Gabriella has given numerous live and recorded broadcasts for ABC Classic FM.
‘Alvin Curran’s Inner Cities works for solo piano are deeply reflective meditations on form and style, and, at the hands of the pianist Gabriella Smart, the works ring out with exemplary clarity. Smart, the Australian virtuoso specialising in new music…a reminder of the sensuous plushness that a keyboard is capable of.’– The Wire
Gabriella also performs and composes on a range of MIDI and synthesiser keyboards, and the Electric Crystal, an instrument created by Dylan Crismani (SA) in 2021. Inspired by the Cristal Baschet (invented by the Baschet Brothers in France in 1952), the Electric Crystal is amplified electronically. It is also tuned microtonally, adding to its unique resonance. An active and engaged composer, Gabriella has been commissioned by the Australian Dance Theatre, the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide Film Festival, Perth International Festival, ABC Classic and Art Zoyd (France). Working across an array of electronics, acoustic instruments, samples and field recordings, Gabriella employs electronic means to fuse and distil the natural resonance of acoustic instruments.
‘…rich and complex orchestration moved around the speaker array, inducing the feeling of sitting within a sonic counterpart to that other great astronomical observatory, Stonehenge, while its stone pillars speak and move about like actors on a stage…’– Chris Reid, Limelight Magazine
Gabriella has extensive experience and recognised expertise in curation and artistic direction of national and international artistic events. For 30 years, she has been Artistic Director of Soundstream New Music, having curated four festivals and numerous concert series. Gabriella has close, 50 year family ties to the Inarma Choir (Titjikala Community, NT). In 2015 Titjikala Community established Titjikala Music in partnership with Soundstream, an Arts for Health project that focuses on creating economic opportunities and improved health and education outcomes by establishing music programs within Titjikala community. Since 2015 Gabriella has been conducting music workshops in Community with acclaimed mentors including Mark Smerdon, Kerry Jampijinpa Bird and Stuart Patterson (The Empty Threats, AUS). In 2021, the Inarma Choir, in partnership with Gabriella, was awarded an ABC Classic Radio Composer Commission. A passionate educator, Gabriella established the Soundstream Emerging Composers’ Forum in 2012, a nationally recognised Australian Forum for the mentoring, recognition and commissioning of new works in Australia by emerging composers. With Cat Hope in 2018, she established Summers Night Project, inspired by Anne Summers’ Women’s Manifesto (2017), and aims to grow the gender diversity of composers in music programs in Australia and support and mentor female and non-binary composers.
‘Gabriella’s breadth of story-telling and her innovative means of working take us right out of covid obsessed 2021.’– Becky Llewellyn, composer
Gabriella’s excellence has been recognised through major awards including residencies, and prestigious fellowships. In 2020/21 she was the recipient of the Paris Residency from The Australia Council for the Arts, a South Australian Government Creative Fellowship, and an APRA AMCOS Art Music Award for Excellence by an Individual in 2019. In 2018, she was awarded a Prelude Composer Residency (Australia) and a UNESCO City of Music residency in Katowice, Poland. Previously, Gabriella has been the recipient of a Churchill Fellowship (2010), national Helpmann Award (2009), and Ruby Award for Best Event in South Australia in 2009.