Carmel Smickersgill
Carmel Smickersgill is a Manchester-based composer and performer. After studying at the Royal Northern College of Music with Gary Carpenter, she has had a varied freelance career in music: working in theatre, writing for concert halls and touring with bands. She released EPs We Get What We Get & We Don’t Get Upset and Unsolicited Advice in 2022 and 2025 with PRAH Recordings; she was a 2021 recipient of the Jerwood Live Art Award, a 2020 nominee for the Ivor Novello Rising Star Award and a 2019 recipient of the Rushworth Composition Prize with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Carmel’s music has regularly been played on BBC Radio 6 Music and Radio 3; she has performed on Elizabeth Alker’s Northern Drift Radio 3 show in June 2022, and supported Anna Meredith at the Barbican and on her November 2021 tour. Carmel is also one half of Bothy, a group looking to create sustainable working and rehearsal spaces for musicians in Manchester.
Biography last updated: 2026