Gundega Smite

Gundega Šmite was born in Riga, Latvia. She graduated from the composition department of Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music with professor Pēteris Plakidis (2007). Within Erasmus program, she supplemented her education at Jean Sibelius Academy of Music (Finland) with Veli-Matti Puumala. She has participated in Centre Acanthes workshop, having masterclasses with Salvatore Sciarrino, Fabio Nieder, Philipe Hurel, Oskar Strasnoy, and Unsuk Chin. Since 2008 she has been leading composition masterclasses for young composers in Ogre, Sigulda (International Young Musicians masterclasses), and Madona. 

 Since 2007 she has been a lecturer at the Latvian Music Academy. From 2009 to 2012 she held a Chairman's position at the Latvian Composers’ Union. She has been an artistic director of the Contemporary Music Festival Arena. She holds a doctoral degree in arts from the Latvian Music Academy for her musicological research, which concerns various aspects of music and text relationship in contemporary choral music. Currently, she is based in Thessaloniki, Greece.

She has won numerous prizes and recognitions for her work, including the festival Culturescapes International young composers competition (Isochasma, 2006) and the Grand Music Award for the New Composition of the year (IΩ. Eos, the Goddess of Dawn for symphony orchestra, 2019).