24 Year old, South African born and now Los Angeles based artist Jono Smithers is turning heads with his rapid rise to fame since moving from SA to the USA.
More info about Jono Smithers
Jono Smithers is an internationally renowned musician, composer, producer, songwriter and guitarist whose work spans multiple platforms. The Summa Cum Laude graduate of Berklee College of Music (Boston) has contributed to innovative music productions and live jazz performances alike.
On YouTube under his channel ‘jonosmithers’ he has composed a number of highly popular Soundtrack and Timelapse commissions on a Minecraft Server known as Hermitcraft. Minecraft is the best-selling video game of all time, with 200 million copies sold across all platforms and 126 million monthly active users as of 2020.
His original Hermitcraft commissions have been prominently featured by leading streaming gamers including Grian (5,550,000 subscribers) and Mumbo Jumbo (6,140,000 subscribers). Jono has since amassed a major following known as the #sockgang on the Twitch platform, as well as receiving 2.7M views on his YouTube channel since 05/2020.
The multi-instrumentalist is a highly skilled guitarist who has played for more than 19 years (his prized instruments include a Gibson Les Paul Custom VOS ’59) as well as bringing keyboard, string ensemble and composition expertise to his productions.
At the age of 12 years he was accepted into the Berklee College of Music Summer School program – previous minimum age for admittance was 15 years. Throughout his career, Smithers has collaborated with leading international musicians, composers and creators. He worked with and has been mentored by leading guitarist Mick Goodrick, who has also taught and worked with renowned artists like Pat Metheny, John Scofield, Bill Frisell, Mike Stern and David Tronzo.
Musician Magazine has ranked David Tronzo, who often goes by Tronzo, as one of the top 100 guitarists of all time. Smithers original work as an independent musician has also gained considerable attention. In 2019, he released his debut album “Honeybee” and his 2020 single release “Cape Town ” is contagious, upbeat, fun, colorful & chaotic” and was playlisted on National South African Radio.
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