Sarah Penicka-Smith

 

 

Sarah Penicka-Smith has been a professional conductor since 2004. She specialises in choral conducting, with experience in opera direction and orchestral conducting, and is passionate about facilitating culture change in community organisations. Sarah has been Music Director of the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Choir since 2005, and is now the choir’s longest-serving director. The choir has undertaken an increasing range of projects under Sarah’s direction, including its first forays into opera, cabaret, and music theatre; two international tours; and the commission, premiere and recording of Dreams & Visions, a major new choral work by John Peterson. Sarah also facilitated an Out & Loud Festival of Australian and New Zealand queer choirs at Hobart’s Festival of Voices in 2013, where she curated a performance art program at MONA. SGLC returns to MONA for more interactive performance art in 2015.

Sarah also holds the positions of Director of Music at St Andrew’s College since 2011, and Principal Conductor with the Macquarie University Singers since 2013. She has wide experience as Chorusmaster, including with Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, Willoughby Symphony Choir, and the Sydney Intervarsity Choral Festival. In 2010 Sarah directed the 61st Intervarsity Choral Festival in Canberra. 

Sarah also invests time and expertise in community chamber opera projects. In 2009 she conducted Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, with Sydney Gay & Lesbian Choir (the first opera ever staged by a queer choir), and continued on to work with young singer Bernard Leon as he founded chamber opera start-up Opera Prometheus in 2010. Sarah conducted Campra’s Tancrede and the premiere of Luke Cummins’ Anacreontea for Opera Prometheus before taking over the company in 2013. Since then she has produced and chorusmastered the NSW premiere of Krasa’s children’s opera Brundibar as well as conducting an educational series at Sydney Jewish Museum. Sarah’s other opera credits include Phillip Glass’s Akhnaten with Ondine Productions, and this year she will conduct Menotti’s The Medium for Opera Prometheus and Stewart Wallace’s Harvey Milk for Left Bauer Productions. 

Sarah has been part of the Symphony Australia Conductor Development Program since 2012, undertaking mastercourses with Marko Letonja, Johannes Fritsch, and Christopher Seaman with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. She has been a guest conductor with ensembles including Willoughby Symphony Orchestra, Kuringai Philharmonic Orchestra, and Sydney Chamber Orchestra. 

In addition to her musical credits, Sarah holds a PhD from the University of Sydney, where her speciality lies in the examining the nexus between art and religion.

 

Sarah is looking forward to working with the Intercol Orchestra for the first time in 2015.