The London Symphony Orchestra has announced its newest member: Katie Smith, who has joined the orchestra's legendary trumpet section.
Smith, who is the first female member of the LSO trumpet section in its 121-year history, comes with a long pedigree: she is the fourth generation of her family to be a member of the orchestra. Both parents were members in the 1980s, cellist Jennie Brown (1982–2022) and Co-Principal Trumpet Malcolm Smith (1982–88).
Katie’s grandfather, James Brown, was Assistant Principal Horn in the late 1970s, and her great-grandfather, Andrew Brown, was an LSO violinist in the 1930s, sharing the front desk with the LSO's then-leader WH Reed.
Alongside her late father, in whose memory she first took up the trumpet at the age of seven, Smith cites as one of her trumpet heroes former LSO Principal Trumpet, Maurice Murphy, a longstanding figure who shaped the LSO’s brass sound for thirty years. Murphy, who played in countless recordings and concerts between 1977 and 2007, is famous for his opening notes on the original 1977 Star Wars soundtrack, recorded on his first day at work with the orchestra.
“My mum would often bring me in to Sunday rehearsals where I would sit backstage doing my homework or listening to the rehearsal in the hall,” Katie Smith said in an interview. “I remember often seeing Maurice walking down the backstage corridor and would always give me the time to say hello and ask how my trumpet playing was going. After I began playing, there would be times during rehearsals for children’s concerts where Maurice would get me to sit in the section with him. Looking back, I cannot believe how unbelievably lucky I was to experience the kindness of Maurice first-hand.”
Following undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Royal Academy of Music, Smith has played with many of the UK’s leading orchestras. She joins the LSO after a year and a half with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra as their Sub-Principal Trumpet.
