Vocal Opera Drama Studies

Russell Smith

Lecturer

Russell Smith, Leading Irish Voice Coach with over 30 years’ experience as practitioner and educator, Russell’s work centres on the experiential integration of voice, mind and body in service of the spoken and sung word.

With a background in physical therapy, an MA in Arts from TCD, professionally singing at Christ Church Cathedral and the RTÉ Chamber Choir before training full-time at the Gaiety School of Acting – The National Theatre School of Ireland, he has regularly combined his work as an actor, singer, composer, musical director and vocal coach in radio, film and theatre in Ireland and the UK, most recently musically directing and acting in the 2024 Dublin Theatre Festival’s "Warrior".

         “It is Russell Smith who wins the audience... and the mere physicality of his performance is superb” (Irish Times, Dec 2007)
         “Russell Smith gets one of the evening’s biggest laughs”  (Irish Times Oct 2024)

Awarded several bursaries by the Arts Council and Dublin City Council, he has pursued further training at the Roy Hart International Centre for Voice in France, working with over a dozen founders of Roy Hart theatre, including Kevin Crawford, former director of the Academia Del Arte, Arezzo, Italy, Kaya Anderson, Noah Pikes and Jonathan Hart and Rosemary Quinn of Tisch, NYU.

More recently undergoing two years’ training in Fitzmaurice Voicework® at the Institute Del Teatro in Barcelona under Catherine Fitzmaurice (founder, Fitzmaurice Institute, NY) he has worked extensively alongside Catherine since.

Russell is currently also Head of Voice at the Gaiety School of Acting, previously teaching at Trinity College Dublin, American College Dublin, the Irish film academy, RIAM, the Australian Academy of Dramatic Art, the Actors College of Theatre and Television and The Wesley Institute of Music in Sydney, and for the Fitzmaurice institute, training voice coaches in Los Angeles, Llubljana, London and Shanghai.

Regularly dialect coaching for film and theatre, he has most recently completed season two of “Sanctuary: a Witches tale” for Sundance Now and seasons 2 and 3 of Netflix’s “Vikings: Valhalla”.

Former editorial board member of the Voice and Speech Review (Routledge), Russell is an associate member of VASTA and of the Fitzmaurice Institute, contributing to the publication of the upcoming official Fitzmaurice Voicework® book and regularly collaborating in practice-led research. Specialist interests include bridging song and speech, integrating movement and sound, developing the actor’s voice in light of the Hibernian dramatic canon, and characterising lyric poetry in service of devised drama.