Oboist

Penelope Smith

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Penelope Smith
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About Penelope

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Oboist
London
Verified profile
Freelance oboe and cor anglais player, based in London. Royal College of Music graduate with a Masters in Orchestral Performance.

In 2005, Penelope was awarded a full Scholarship to study at Trinity College of Music with Josephine Lively and Christopher O'Neal, graduating with a BMus (Hons) in 2009. She then went on to study for a Masters in Orchestral Perfomance at the Royal College of Music under the tutelage of Christopher Cowie, David Theodore and Christine Pendrill. During her studies she was accepted onto the orchestral pathway scheme and in 2011, she was awarded the Evelyn Rothwell Oboe Prize. Since graduating with a Masters in Orchestral Performance 2:1, she has been working as a freelance musician with orchestras throughout the UK and Europe such as the London Mozart Players, RTE Concert Orchestra, English Festival Orchestra, Brandenburg Sinfonia, and the Festival Chamber Orchestra. She is currently on the extra list for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Orchestra of Opera North, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra of The Royal Opera House. Penelope's solo performances include J.S Bach's Concerto for Oboe d'Amore with the Exeter Symphony Orchestra, Haydn's Concerto for Oboe with the Orchestra of Situation Opera and Agrell's Concerto for Oboe with The Amadé Players.

Performance details
I can perform outdoors
I can perform while walking around a venue
Musicianship
Genres:
Christmas, Classical, Classical crossover, Contemporary classical, Baroque, Early music, Film / TV music, Musical theatre, Opera, Electronic, Ambient, 1920s era music, 1930s era music, 1940s era music, 1950s era music, 1960s era music, 1970s era music, 1980s era music, 1990s era music, Pop, Acoustic, Ambient pop, Covers
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Instruments:
Oboe, Cor Anglais, Oboe d'amore
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Event types:
Concert, Wedding, Wedding proposal, Funeral / Memorial service, Private event, Corporate event, Charity event, Recording session, Theatre / Show, Cruise, Birthday party, Christmas party, New Year's Eve
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Other skills:
Instrumental teaching
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Reviews

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Charlie C, 2 months ago

Excellent in every respect Charlie

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Simon B, 7 months ago

Penelope was superb to work with on my recent Oboe Solos project. I was able to achieve everything I needed from the session. She was professional, had learnt the works through and I especially liked her considered feedback. We were able to explore the finer structure of the pieces, changing nuance and solving ways to apply techniques and sounds. The solos were played through twice and some a third time with other excerpts. Over the session I could hear the benefits of our process and appreciate the personality/character she gave to the pieces. I'm really grateful to have had the opportunity to explore the new works and really look forward to more collaborations in the future. Great thanks.

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Declan Z, 9 months ago

I was impressed by Penny's skills as a session musician recently when I produced a series of performance videos of her performing a huge variety of challenging solo oboe repertoire. Penny was repeatedly able to achieve seemingly perfect takes with great tone, so clearly has an effective approach to preparing and executing large volumes of material. I look forward to hearing Penny smashing some oboe solos on some more recordings in the near future!

Http://www.exetersymphonyorchestra.co.uk/blog/a-review-of-our-spring-concert-on-19th-march-by-nick-horton, 3 years ago

She was possessed of a captivating and lovely tone and captured the wonderful lyricism and intimate joy of the ever-evolving lines of the fast, outer movements.

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From other musicians:

Declan Zapala
18th November 2018
Declan Zapala

I was impressed by Penny's skills as a session musician recently when I produced a series of performance videos of her performing a huge variety of challenging solo oboe repertoire. Penny was repeatedly able to achieve seemingly perfect takes with great tone, so clearly has an effective approach to preparing and executing large volumes of material. I look forward to hearing Penny smashing some oboe solos on some more recordings in the near future!

Julius Bannister
7th May 2017
Julius Bannister

Penny performed a wonderful concerto by Gustav Holst with my orchestra in March 2017. A warm and winning tone, a joy to work with, and I am hoping to record these works with her in the summer 2017. I first met Penny working with the Jersey Chamber Orchestra in 2016 and she has been a repeat visitor to this accomplished ensemble.