Yvonne Smith

At age nine when her family was living in upstate New York, Yvonne Smith chose to learn to play the viola because of its rich, dark sound, its supporting role in ensembles ... and her acute distaste for high notes, which would have been inevitable, had she chosen to play the violin. Her love for the viola grew throughout her childhood years and several cross-country moves, and she eventually grew to tolerate and even embrace high notes. 

Yvonne was first introduced to early music as a teenager when she heard and fell in love with a recording of Corelli’s violin concerti by Philharmonia Baroque. She began seriously pursuing historical performance shortly after completing viola performance degrees from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University (B.Mus’13, M.Mus’ 15). While at Rice, she studied with James Dunham and Joan DerHovsepian.  

In addition to performing with and running La Speranza, Yvonne enjoys a full schedule as a performing and teaching artist on both modern and baroque viola. In the 2023-24 season, she will appear as soloist and as a member of Lyra Baroque (Minneapolis, MN) and American Bach Soloists (San Francisco, CA).   Yvonne plays with the Houston Symphony as a contracted substitute violist and has a thriving viola studio of private students ranging from age 8 to adult.   Yvonne’s baroque viola was made by Timothy Johnson in 2017 after Andrea Guarneri, 1676, and her modern viola was made by Vanna So in 2009.