Seventy singers gathered for American singer-composer Moira Smiley in Bath and enjoyed an afternoon and evening immersed in wonderful old songs and inventive, joyous new sounds. In a special collaboration, the evening concert featured songs from Moira’s Rhizome Project album, performed with the Balladeste string quartet and Rolling Harmony vocal ensemble.
“SUCH a superlative day of music… Moira Smiley is everything you say and more, and the Balladeste string quartet and Rolling Harmony were simply perfect”
“A fabulous afternoon and evening… Moira is inspirational…”
“What a glorious day we all had singing and listening”
“Fabulous concert… Moira was mesmerising, the quartet top rate and Rolling Harmony were sublime”
“…gentleness, passion, flexibility, ease, collaboration, range, unique, original, committed, engaged, beauty”
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- Moira Smiley Bat singing workshop, Bath, October 2025
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- Moira Smiley Bat singing workshop, Bath, October 2025
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- Rolling Harmony and Moira Smiley
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- Rolling Harmony, Moira Smiley and Balladeste, Bath, October 2025
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- Moira Smiley and Balladeste, Bath, October 2025
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- Moira Smiley and Jane Harris, Songways
About Moira Smiley
Singer, composer, and song-collector Moira Smiley has sung in arenas, cathedrals, kitchens, back porches, sound stages, and on glaciers. She has performed with the likes of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Tune-Yards, Tim O’Brien, Eric Whitacre, Los Angeles Master Chorale, New World Symphony, Solas, and The Lyris String Quartet.
Moira has led vocal workshops and residencies at countless universities, colleges, high schools, conservatories, and musical organizations including the LA Master Chorale, Savannah Acoustic Music Seminar, Vancouver Youth Choir, Yale, and Oxford. Moira’s academic specialty is Early Music, and she has developed parallel experience with various folk traditions – especially early American, Irish, and Balkan vocal styles. By exploring the particularities of traditions, styles, and periods, she’s found something uniquely her own.
Moira continues to develop new experiences for singers, and is excited by the opportunity to share music with singers of all experience levels.
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- Moira Smiley from the US | Photo Fiona Small
The Rhizome Project features ancient and original folk songs for soprano, string quartet and vocal ensemble, blending folk repertoire with classical instrumentation. The project celebrates the songs that shaped Moira as a young musician, and the ferocious, multi-textural power of a string quartet to surround these songs in storytelling splendor. Threaded through the ‘chamber-folk’ feeling of the album is Moira’s clear voice, wrapped in arrangements that are simultaneously minimalist and lush, reminding us of our shared ‘sugar-in-the-ground’ — an unsentimental, underground connectivity that defies a divisive era.