Kyla-Rose Smith

Kyla-rose Smith is an acclaimed performer, violinist, and multimedia artist, best known for her work as violinist and backing singer with Freshlyground, South Africa’s premier Afropop band. She has toured extensively inside and beyond South Africa and garnered many awards including seven South African Music Awards (SAMA) awards, an MTV Europe Award, and four METRO awards. Kyla was also a recipient of the Glamour Woman of the Year Award.

Spending the better part of two decades as a touring musician, Kyla developed a keen interest in the art of performance and how musicians interact with their audience through the medium of sound and music, while bridging cultural divides. She is co-artistic director and artist facilitator of Hear Be Dragons, a sound mapping project and artistic exchange program that explores sound and the city and the way these influence our quality of life, perceptions of history and memory, and notions of identity. She is also co-creator of Jiyan and Memories, a body of work exploring ancestral memory, matriarchal lineage, and the rituals of homemaking with groups of women in Turkey and Appalachia.