RAPHAELLA SMITS

Raphaella Smits is an important academic person for the guitar community from all
around the globe. I’ve chosen her for this essay because I admire her work and I am
amazed of how powerful are the feelings she lets in people’s souls with her music, with
the warm sounds of her guitar. I met her and had the honor to talk to her in Cluj, last
month, with the occasion of the „Transilvania International Guitar Festival” and had the
pleasure to find that she is a beautiful person too just like her music. I will continue to
talk about her life and the little changes she brought to the world.

Raphaella Smits entered in this world on 1st of February 1957 in Belgium. She is 61
and plays with all her heart in a very unique way at guitars with eight strings and at other
historical instruments. „Smits plays with more heart that anybody should be allowed to
have” - Tom Chandler’s words from Classical Guitar Corner Academy.

She comes from an artist family where all the members can play an instrument. Her
father plays the viola, her mother the piano and her brother is a professional violinist.
Since she was young she loved the music. She started singing in a choir, then she learned
at the Waldorf school all the vertical flutes (soprano, alto, tenor and bass). Her parents
observing that she likes singing so much, they bought her a guitar to accompany herself.
It all started from here. She went to study at the Music Academy from Munchen,
continued at the Kunsthumaniora and after that at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp.
She is very inspiring. In 1986, she was the very first woman who won the first prize at
the „XX Certamen International de Guitarra Francisco Tarrega”, an important and
famous guitar competition in Spain.

She studied very hard to become a very good guitarist and, also, an exceptional
teacher of guitar and chamber music. She teaches at the Lemmens Institute in Belgium
and beside that she gives master-classes in West and East Europe, in North and South
America and even in Japan. I’ve participated at one of her master-classes and it was such
a great experience, I learned a lot about how to express more feelings in what I play and
also, I had a great time just talking with her. „One of the most delicate and most cultivated
performers of our time” – Jean Bernard’s words in the magazine Diapasone from France.

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 Back in 1983, Raphaella visited one of her teachers in Alicante, José Tomàs, and
thought that it will be a great opportunity for her young Belgian students to meet him and
have master-classes with him. She inspired the cultural society Academix and as a result
they organized „Academix International Guitar Happenings” (1984-1995). Over 350
participants from 28 different countries took summer classes with the greatest, finest
guitarists and teachers from those times like: José Tomàs, David Russell, Jorge Cardoso,
Roberto Aussel etc. They had chosen special places, castles or centers at „miles away
from anywhere” like: Corsendonk Priory, Den Rooy Conference Center,
Landcommandery Alden Biesen, etc. The participants won amazing experiences, many
great memories, friends for a lifetime and all the credits are for Raphaella.

In conclusion, Raphaella Smits is an amazing person, guitarist and teacher who can
change the lives of her students by talking always calm with them, giving them the
support they need and hope with a smile on her face. It is a good and an enjoyable way
to learn. She inspired me in many ways and made me want to be a better guitarist and
also a better person. If I will succeed in my career and I will become a teacher, I really
want to be like her and give to my students what she gives hers.

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BIBLIOGRAFIE

http://www.rsmits.com/ - Raphaella Smits Official Website