UNITY — New England Celtic Arts will present highly acclaimed Scottish performer Emily Smith at Unity College Center for the Performing Arts in Unity on Tuesday Oct. 4, and at Skye Theatre Performing Arts Center in South Carthage and on Wednesday Oct. 5. Curtain at unity is 7:30  p.m. and at Skye it’s 7 p.m. Preshow jam sessions at Skye and Unity start one hour prior to curtain.

Dumfries & Galloway’s Emily Smith is one of the leading singers on the contemporary Scottish folk scene. Her powerful, clear vocals have gained her award-winning, worldwide recognition. As a songwriter, Smith has been called “a Scottish Joni Mitchell,” but as a passionate collector she is equally adept at presenting fresh and evocative interpretations of traditional songs.

Smith’s childhood was spent dancing to music, rather than performing it, in her mother’s dance school. She grew up assuming everyone knew how to do a highland fling and weekends were spent dancing at ceilidhs rather than nightclubs. At age 7 she started out on piano; moved onto snare drum in the local pipe band and subsequently found a passion for piano accordion, where at the age of 18 she was National Mod champion.

But it wasn’t until a solo with the school choir in her late teens that Smith discovered her singing voice. She moved to Glasgow in 1999 where she gained an Honours degree in Scottish music from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and drama. With principal study of Scots song, she also studied accordion and piano.

Winning BBC Radio Scotland’s Young Traditional Musician of the Year Award in 2002 gave Smith the confidence and impetus she needed to pursue a career in music. In the same year she met New Zealand-born multi-instrumentalist Jamie McClennan who had traveled to Scotland to pursue his own music career. McClennan joined Smith’s band initially on fiddle and has been an integral part of her sound ever since, helping to arrange and produce Smith’s albums. He has now now settled into the role of lead guitarist in her band.

Smith soon found her interpretation of traditional Scots songs coupled with her own compositions were gathering appeal both in the UK and further afield and the last eight years have seen her regularly perform before audiences throughout Europe, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, United States and Canada.

Smith previously released three solo albums and her fourth, “Traiveller’s Joy” was launched at Celtic Connections in January 2011. She is completing a tour of the West coast of the U.S. and is stopping in Maine for the two shows on her way to Celtic Colours International Festival in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

Skye Theater is located 3 miles West of East Dixfield village at 2 Highland Drive off Winter Hill Road and  Route 2 in South Carthage. UCCPA is at 42 Depot St. in Unity. Tickets are $15 at the door. For reservations call Skye Theatre at 562-4445 or UCCPA at 948-7469. Reservations are strongly suggested at both venues.