Pete Smith(XLIII)
- Composer
Pete Smith - Dip R. S, A.B.R.S.M
Pete Smith is a composer, sound-designer and creative artist currently residing in Cardiff, Wales. Raised in Portsmouth, Pete found his musical roots in the area of performance at a young age, engaging with various county music projects, and has since matured into a creative, professional and highly motivated musician all round. His career began as an orchestral percussionist, and gradually branched out into different genres and styles as the years progressed. He thus discovered a love for jazz, folk and many other styles of playing, enabling him to travel the length and breadth of the country as well as touring various places in Europe with a number of ensembles(ranging from full scale symphony orchestras to smaller ska/reggae groups). It was this love of playing that led him to take an ever growing interest in composing the music he is so passionate about, an interest which he has been developing ever since. From these experiences he has also developed a great interest in ancient history, whose influences can be seen clearly in his scores.
While completing his A level exams he also achieved two diplomas from RockSchool and A.B.R.S.M respectively. It was in this time, encouraged by some truly inspirational teachers, that Pete began to seriously think about composition as a potential career choice, specifically in the areas of media and installation. Creating music for these projects enabled Pete to combine his flair for the dramatique with his interest in the musical industry and, ultimately, scoring for film and game. To help further his dream he applied to a number of music courses at various universities and conservatoires, finally choosing the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (2011, now starting his fourth year) studying Creative Music Technology. This in turn has exposed him to a new level of musicianship and skill, again actively reflected in his works.
In recent years Pete has worked on a number of independent films (including those licensed by the BBC, s4c and BBC Wales) and other media pieces (for games, adverts and radio), gaining commissions from the likes of E.A Games and adverts featured by cinema-focused company Pearl and Dean, as well as a well known gaming company Valve that has secured many thousands of downloads the world over. He is currently working closely with a number of other artists on a series of large scale projects, as well as his own. Stemming from this line of work, Pete has garnered several awards for his compositions, including the British 'Sparky' (the northern England student film awards) for Best Music and Sound, Best Short Film and Best Original Score, all from the short film 'Chimera', that has also been nominated for the British Film Awards as Best Student Short. He is also co-founder of the music publishing studio 'Tonal Shift Studios'.
As well as the Music for Media work he has also gained respect in the musical sub-genres of electro-acoustique and acousmatique music, having work played in a number of international competitions. From this work Pete has been able to feed his love of outreach by gaining a high-budget, high-interest job from the National Autism Foundation, composing and creating a piece of software for use by severely autistic children to give them an 'ensemble' based musical experience, to be unveiled in the coming academic year.
Pete Smith is a composer, sound-designer and creative artist currently residing in Cardiff, Wales. Raised in Portsmouth, Pete found his musical roots in the area of performance at a young age, engaging with various county music projects, and has since matured into a creative, professional and highly motivated musician all round. His career began as an orchestral percussionist, and gradually branched out into different genres and styles as the years progressed. He thus discovered a love for jazz, folk and many other styles of playing, enabling him to travel the length and breadth of the country as well as touring various places in Europe with a number of ensembles(ranging from full scale symphony orchestras to smaller ska/reggae groups). It was this love of playing that led him to take an ever growing interest in composing the music he is so passionate about, an interest which he has been developing ever since. From these experiences he has also developed a great interest in ancient history, whose influences can be seen clearly in his scores.
While completing his A level exams he also achieved two diplomas from RockSchool and A.B.R.S.M respectively. It was in this time, encouraged by some truly inspirational teachers, that Pete began to seriously think about composition as a potential career choice, specifically in the areas of media and installation. Creating music for these projects enabled Pete to combine his flair for the dramatique with his interest in the musical industry and, ultimately, scoring for film and game. To help further his dream he applied to a number of music courses at various universities and conservatoires, finally choosing the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (2011, now starting his fourth year) studying Creative Music Technology. This in turn has exposed him to a new level of musicianship and skill, again actively reflected in his works.
In recent years Pete has worked on a number of independent films (including those licensed by the BBC, s4c and BBC Wales) and other media pieces (for games, adverts and radio), gaining commissions from the likes of E.A Games and adverts featured by cinema-focused company Pearl and Dean, as well as a well known gaming company Valve that has secured many thousands of downloads the world over. He is currently working closely with a number of other artists on a series of large scale projects, as well as his own. Stemming from this line of work, Pete has garnered several awards for his compositions, including the British 'Sparky' (the northern England student film awards) for Best Music and Sound, Best Short Film and Best Original Score, all from the short film 'Chimera', that has also been nominated for the British Film Awards as Best Student Short. He is also co-founder of the music publishing studio 'Tonal Shift Studios'.
As well as the Music for Media work he has also gained respect in the musical sub-genres of electro-acoustique and acousmatique music, having work played in a number of international competitions. From this work Pete has been able to feed his love of outreach by gaining a high-budget, high-interest job from the National Autism Foundation, composing and creating a piece of software for use by severely autistic children to give them an 'ensemble' based musical experience, to be unveiled in the coming academic year.