Nicholas Michael Smith
Nicholas Michael Smith, OBE, is a British conductor and composer who has pioneered in the field of introducing western classical music to the People’s Republic of China. He is the first conductor to promote systematically western choral-symphonic repertoire in the country. He is currently the artistic director of the Peking Sinfonietta. He is a fluent Mandarin speaker and has been based in Beijing since 1995.
Early Life
Source[1]
Smith was born in 1967. He grew up in the United Kingdom and attended Exeter School. He studied composition and conducting with Reginald Thompson before attending St. John’s College, Cambridge to read music, where he conducted the St. John’s College music society choir and orchestra, and was actively involved in the student-led contemporary music scene.[2]
Early Career in China and Peking Sinfonietta
In 1994, Smith was employed by the Wuhan Music Conservatory to establish a post-graduate course in music theory and analysis. In 1995, Smith relocated to Beijing. At that time, Chinese interest in western classical music was at a nascent stage of development, and Smith began to work with local professional musicians and the Beijing Concert Hall on educational concerts designed to develop interest in a broad range of repertoire. This evolved into the versatile professional ensemble Peking Sinfonietta, with whom Smith has given the first Chinese performances of large-scale works ranging from Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto to Eric Coates’ “Three Elizabeths” Suite. Under Smith’s direction, the ensemble has also presented the Chinese premieres of Chausson’s Piano Quartet, Elgar’s Piano Quintet, and Edward Dudley Hughes’ Piano Trio - In Media Vita among many other important chamber works.[3][4]
International Festival Chorus of Beijing
In 2002, in conjunction with two other British Beijing residents, Smith formed the International Festival Chorus, with the express mission of bringing large-scale western choral repertoire to China. With this group, Smith has given PRC first performances of many large-scale western choral works, including Rachmaninov’s Vespers, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and St. John Passion, Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony, Lambert’s The Rio Grande, Coleridge Taylor’s Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, Fanshawe’s African Sanctus, Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, Tallis’ Spem in Alium, Poulenc’s Gloria, Britten’s Spring Symphony, and Elgar’s The Music Makers. Smith’s annual concert of music by Handel with the International Festival Chorus was established in 2002 at the Forbidden City Concert Hall and held there until 2007.
Baroque Chamber Chorus of Beijing
In the 1990s, Smith introduced the European style of playing Baroque music to Chinese orchestral musicians in a systematic manner and has created a regular platform for the development of this performance practice for PRC. From 1996 to 2005, Smith was the conductor of the **Baroque Chamber Chorus of Beijing. With this group, Smith introduced the western European choral sound to mainland China, which until that time had been dominated by the Russian choral style in both professional and amateur circles. His work with this choir had significant influence on Professor Wu Lingfen, who invited Smith to coach the choir of the conducting department of the China Conservatory of Music regularly and had him appointed an honorary professor of music there in 2007. The efforts of Wu Lingfen and her students have effectively changed the sound and direction of choral music in China from a Russian focus to a western European one. Smith has also appeared on numerous Chinese radio and television programs and, in 2011, was the recipient of Phoenix TV’s “You Bring Charm to China” award for his efforts to encourage and promote western classical music in China.[5]
Other activities
In 2003, Smith acted as the music director for a production of Lady in the Dark. This was the first Broadway musical to be fully staged in China with live orchestra.
Compositions
Smith has written many choral and orchestral works based on Chinese folk songs. Smith’s The Girl From the French Fort based on a children’s story by Chinese author Hong Ying was written in 2016 as a companion piece to Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, and has become a favourite with young Chinese audience members. Love, Friendship and Longing, a setting of Tang Dynasty Poems for four voices and piano duet was premiered to critical acclaim in London in 2018.
References
- ↑ "Nicholas Smith". International Festival Chorus. Retrieved 28 January 2020.
- ↑ "尼克·史密斯". baidu.com. Retrieved 28 January 2020.
- ↑ "Nicholas Smith". International festival chorus.
- ↑ "The Chorus". International Festival Chorus. Retrieved 28 January 2020.
- ↑ "尼克·史密斯".
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