Katie Smith is joining the LSO after a very happy and fulfilling year and a half with Scotland’s National Orchestra (RSNO) as their Sub-Principal Trumpet. Katie has enjoyed a busy and diverse freelance career as an orchestral musician on both modern and period instruments. She was originally inspired to pick up the trumpet aged seven in memory of her late father Malcolm Smith (Co-Principal Trumpet of the LSO 1982-88). She is the fourth generation of LSO musicians in her family since her great grandfather joined the orchestra in 1929.
Following undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Royal Academy of Music respectively, Katie has played with many of the UK’s leading orchestras including the Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra and English National Opera and has toured the UK and abroad in Asia, the US and Europe. Katie has taught classes at the GSMD, RAM and Royal College of Music. She can be heard on many major film and TV soundtracks including the Matrix Resurrections, Stranger Things and Life on Our Planet. She is very excited for this new chapter of her career with the LSO.
At what age did you start playing your instrument, and what made you choose it? Were there any memorable early experiences that made you realise you wanted to do this as a career?
I started at age seven. My dad who was a professional trumpet player had passed away that year and I wanted to take up the trumpet in his memory. My dad’s side of my family are very brass player oriented and more or less everyone has played a brass instrument at some point, mostly in the Salvation Army brass band tradition. I began learning with my half-sister who is a hugely successful trumpet teacher based in London. When I joined the London Schools Symphony Orchestra aged 14 I knew this was the career for me. I was lucky enough to be challenged by the music director there at the time, Peter Ash, with his trumpet heavy programming and got to perform pieces such as Petrushka, An American in Paris and Pines of Rome which inspired me even more. And incidentally all the concerts (like the LSO) were at the Barbican which was very exciting.
Do you have any heroes on your instrument?
Maurice Murphy former LSO Principal Trumpet 1977-2007. I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time around the orchestra growing up. My mum was a cellist in the orchestra at the time and would often bring me in to Sunday rehearsals where I would sit backstage doing my homework or listening to the rehearsal in the hall. I remember often seeing Maurice walking down the backstage corridor and would always give me the time to say hello and ask how my trumpet playing was going. After I began playing there would be times during rehearsals for children’s concerts where Maurice would get me to sit in the section with him. Looking back I cannot believe how unbelievably lucky I was to experience the kindness of Maurice first hand. I specifically remember hearing him perform the trumpet solo from JFK, I went home and had learnt it immediately! There was something about his sound that was so unique, thrilling and beautiful and what I think is referred to as ‘that LSO sound’ which is wholly epitomised on the opening credits of the Star Wars films. If you ever want to hear exactly what I’m talking about, listen to the LSO’s recording of the last movement of Mahler’s Seventh Symphony conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas.
What are you most looking forward to in the rest of this LSO season? Any conductors, soloists or repertoire that catch your eye? Any stand-out tour destinations?
I cannot wait for my first concert as a member with the orchestra which will be Stravinsky’s Firebird ballet with conductor (and ex trumpet player) Ryan Bancroft. I am also really looking forward to the Götterdämmerung excerpts concert and Tristan and Isolde in its entirety. I love Wagner’s music so much. The enormous brass orchestration and so many original themes.
If you could go back, what advice would you give your younger self as an aspiring musician?
Listen to all types of music and go to as many live performances as possible. I really believe you learn the most as a musician by listening.
Are there any other interesting things about you we should know? Do you play any other instruments? Do you have any hidden talents?
No other instruments, I learnt piano until the end of school but trumpet really had taken over by then. I love paddle boarding and try to go as much as possible. I would go regularly when I lived in Scotland but also went with a group from the LSO on our last tour to America.
If you had to pick, what is your favourite piece of orchestral music, and why?
I love Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. I got to perform it in my last year as a student at Guildhall side by side with LSO with Sir Simon Rattle and have just loved it ever since. I feel like it has absolutely everything a piece can need from a romantic story to an aggressive march to the scaffold and a crazy ending. I could listen to it everyday and never get bored.
What piece of orchestral music would you recommend to someone who has never heard an orchestra before, and why?
Ein Heldenleben by Richard Strauss. I think music that has a specific story like this tone poem makes the piece more accessible to a new listener.
Does your instrument have an interesting story or history behind it?
No particular story behind my instrument. I’ve had to have triggers put on it because my hands are too small to adjust the slides properly.
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