Gundega Šmite (1977) was born in Riga, Latvia. She holds a doctoral degree in arts from the Latvian Music Academy and Master degree in Health Sciences and Psychology with specialization in Music Therapy from Riga Stradins University. She has participated in Centre Acanthes composition workshop, having masterclasses with Salvatore Sciarrino, Fabio Nieder, Philipe Hurel, Oskar Strasnoy and Unsuk Chin. From 2008 she has been leading composition masterclasses for young composers in Sigulda and Madona (Latvia). Since 2007 she has been a lecturer at the Latvian Music Academy. From 2009 till 2012 she held a chairman’s position at the Latvian Composers’ Union. She has won numerous prizes and recognitions for her work, including festival Culturescapes International young composers’ competition (Switzerland) and Latvian Grand Music Award (2019). Her works have been performed by Berlin, Swedish and Latvian Radio choirs, BBC singers, Stockholm saxophone quartet, Ensemble Lucilin (Belgium), BIT20 (Norway) and Percussions des Strasbourg among others.
Currently, she is based in Thessaloniki, Greece.

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