Barbara Smith-Davis

   Barbara Smith-Davis began her professional career while attending S.M.U. in 1963 and performing in the Dallas Summer Musicals theater series alongside stage and screen icons like Carol Burnett, John Raitt, Art Lund, Howard Keel and Ginger Rogers.

   After moving to New York, she made her operatic debut with The Goldovsky Opera Theatre and toured the country as "Zerlina" in Don Giovanni. She continued to perform operatically in roles that include "Donna Anna" in Don Giovanni, "Sonja" in The Merry Widow, "Marguerite" in Faust, "Michaela" in Carmen, "Violetta" in La Traviata, and "Nedda" in I Pagliacci in venues from Canada to Chilé.

   In musical theatre, Barbara has perfomed nearly every soprano role in the Rogers and Hammerstein catalog as well as leading roles in Kiss Me, Kate, The Most Happy Fella, The Phantom of the Opera, Man of La Mancha, Lend Me a Tenor, and was chosen by John Kander and Fred Ebb to star in the revival of their musical, The Happy Time. She was cast in two national, turned international, tours of The Sound of Music; one with Debby Boone, the other with Marie Osmond where she functioned as a member of the cast and vocal coach to Ms Osmond. She continues to be Ms Osmond’s voice teacher and has prepared her for her Broadway debut in The King and I, her album of classical and sacred selections, as well as her Las Vegas reunion with brother, Donny Osmond. In November of 2010, she accompanied Ms Osmond to Chicago to prepare her for her appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. 

  Barbara began accepting private vocal students in 1981 and has maintained a studio which hosted nearly 500 students over the the next 35 years. Barbara co-founded the American Singers’ Opera Project in Manhattan with colleague, Nancy Stokes-Milnes and, husband, J.B. Davis, and served on its board and as an instructor for 7 seasons. She was also an adjunct faculty member at William Patterson College for 4 years and has given Master classes at Dartmouth, SUNY Stonybrook, and University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.  She continues to assemble master classes in musical stage performance, scene study, audition technique, classical repertoire and foreign language diction, and solo recital performance.

Barbara currently operates her voice studio in New Orleans, LA, where she lives with her family.