Pamela Smits is a Dutch cellist, born on 28 August 1968 in Ottawa, Canada. She grew up in the Netherlands and studied cello with Jiří Prchal at the Municipal Conservatory of Leeuwarden and with Jean Decroos at the Amsterdam Conservatory. She later studied at Indiana University in Bloomington with János Starker, taking chamber-music lessons with Shigeo Neriki and György Sebők. Her further training included masterclasses with Miloš Sádlo, Saša Večtomov, Paul Tortelier, Lynn Harrell, Steven Isserlis, Anner Bijlsma, Natalia Gutman, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, and György Sebők in Ernen, Switzerland.
From 1994 to 1997, Smits was principal of the cello section of the New World Symphony in Miami under Michael Tilson Thomas. She appeared as soloist with that orchestra and with other orchestras in concertos and concert works by C. P. E. Bach, Beethoven, Boccherini, Friedrich Gulda, Handel, Haydn, Hans Kox, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, and Vivaldi. In 1992, she performed C. P. E. Bach's Cello Concerto No. 3 in A major with the Haydn Youth String Orchestra under Ben de Ligt during a ten-concert tour of the Netherlands. In 2006, she played Hans Kox's First Cello Concerto with the Zoroaster String Orchestra under Herman Draaisma.
Smits has given several world premieres, including Hans Kox's Second Sonata for Solo Cello in 2013, a work partly dedicated to her, and Frank van Gompel's Requiem, Infinite Compassion, for solo cello, choir, and string orchestra in 2014. In 2023, she was soloist with the Dutch Youth String Orchestra under Carel den Hertog in Heather Pinkham's Shadows Fade, based on Mozart's Lacrimosa; the work was written for Smits and the orchestra and dedicated to her. In May 2024, she gave the world premiere of Orkun Ağır's Impromptu No. 2 for solo cello at the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ in Amsterdam.
Her concert travel has taken her to Europe, the Caribbean, the Americas, Israel, Hong Kong, Japan, and the United States. She has performed at the Small Hall of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Meistersaal in Berlin, and the Edinburgh Festival. In 2010, the Posthuis Theater in Heerenveen invited her to present seven annual concerts for three seasons; she also organized masterclasses there. Since 2013, she has been the founder and artistic director of the Vriendenconcerten concert series at Amsterdam's seventeenth-century Zuiderkerk.
Smits regularly gives recitals with the German pianist Sabine Simon, with whom she has worked for more than 25 years and toured in the United States, Germany, and Austria. She gave a recital with pianist and composer Olli Mustonen in Amsterdam in 2021, including Mustonen's Taivaanvalot for tenor, cello, and piano, with Mexican baritone Emmanuel Franco. Since 2017, she has also worked regularly with pianist Tobias Borsboom. She is cellist and co-founder of the Pentachord Ensemble, established in 2009 with Maarten den Hengst, Emi Ohi Resnick, Mikhail Zemtsov, and Quirijn van Regteren Altena, and of the Voyager Trio, founded in 2018 with saxophonist Arno Bornkamp and Borsboom.
Her interdisciplinary projects have involved actors David Lucieer and Julia Akkermans, musicologists Albert van de Schoot and Michel Khalifa, painter Maryleen Schiltkamp, author Jan Brokken, and violinist Tosca Opdam. These have included concerts combined with literary readings or exhibitions, as well as projects with the Amsterdam Museum. Smits has taught since the age of sixteen, initially as Jiří Prchal's assistant at the Municipal Conservatory of Leeuwarden until her graduation. She has given masterclasses in the Netherlands, Germany, and the United States, including at Duke University, Newark Academy in New York, the NRC Café in Amsterdam, and the Academy of Music in Darmstadt. She also taught cello and chamber music for four seasons at the international summer course of the Hesse State Music Academy in Schlitz, Germany, and taught in a 1997 Miami Beach project for disadvantaged young people.
Her recordings include The French Cello with Sabine Simon (2004; reissued in 2011), Felix Austria with Simon (2010), All-time Favourites with Maarten den Hengst (2014), Hans Kox's Die Todesfrau with the Netherlands Chamber Choir and flautist Abbie de Quant (2014), and Hungarian Canvas with Tobias Borsboom (2024), which includes Kodály's Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 8. She received an honorary prize at the Postbank Sweelinck Cello Competition in Amsterdam in 1992 and won the Indiana University Cello Competition in Bloomington in 1993. She is the daughter of the pianist couple Greta Lang and Ben Smits.