Leslee Smucker (US/NL) is a violinist and composer. She uses violin, voice, synthesizers, electronics, film, and poetry in her works. Her artistic output spans a variety of forms including electroacoustic and live acoustic composition, compositions for her own performance, and concerts of varied musical, filmic, poetic, and artistic work. Common themes explored in her work include anachronisms, language, as well as theatrical settings in musical performance.
As a violinist, she has performed solo projects at Rewire Festival, RewirexKorzo, OT301 in Amsterdam, Association Philomuses in Paris, Studio Loos in The Hague, Auditorium Clarisse in Italy, Center for New Music in San Francisco, Muse Performance Space, and ATLAS black box. Other solo performances include The Scottish Library (presented by University of Edinburgh’s Cantos Project), the Andriessen Festival in Arnhem, NL, Project Audire in Portugal, and Interference Series in Flagstaff, AZ. She was a Barnes Fellow in Philadelphia with artist in residence JACK quartet, a fellow in Ensemble Evolution 2021 with International Contemporary Ensemble, and was the Artistic Director of the chamber ensemble Green Room Artists.
As a composer, she has been commissioned by Gaudeamus and Rewire Festival. Her works have been performed at festivals and venues including Grachtenfestival, Niewe Noten in Amsterdam, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, and November Music. She is also active in multichannel composition. Her work Black 10 for Wavefield Synthesis was premiered at the WFS Festival in The Hague, as well as a version for eight channel at Autumn Festival in the Projection Room, Brussels. For Rewire Festival (2023) she was commissioned to compose and perform a concert for sensory sensitive audience called worlds within. Her album, Breathing Landscape (Beacon Sound, 2024) was included in Bandcamp’s “Best Experimental Music of February 2024. She was a Guest Composer at EMS Stockholm where she worked with their Serge and Buchla systems.
She holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from University of Colorado Boulder. Her primary teachers include Harumi Rhodes (Takacs Quartet), Lina Bahn, Carolyn Stuart, and Monica Germino. Her academic contributions include publications and presentations at international conferences.