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For over 30 years Nicholas Michael Smith has introduced Chinese audiences to orchestral and choral works from the western classical canon

 

For over 30 years, celebrated British musician Nicholas Michael Smith OBE has introduced Chinese audiences to major orchestral and choral works from the western classical canon and raised the profile of Chinese music abroad.

Born in 1967, Smith was raised in the UK attending Exeter School. He read music at St John’s College Cambridge (1987-90), studying with Robin Holloway and Martin Ennis. In 1994, he moved to Wuhan, China to establish a post-graduate course in music theory at the Wuhan Conservatory of Music. Relocating to Beijing in 1995, Smith began working with professional musicians, conservatories, and the Beijing Concert Hall on educational concerts to foster interest in western classical music with new audiences.

Smith’s recording was nominated for a Juno Award for ‘2019 Classical Album of the Year’.

In 1997, Smith founded the Peking Sinfonietta and, in 2002, the Beijing International Festival Chorus, serving as artistic director and chief conductor. Smith conducted the first performances in the People’s Republic of China of Bach’s St John’s Passion, Handel’s Coronation Anthems, Mozart’s Vesperae Solennes de Confessore, Tallis’ Spem in Alium, Vaughan-Williams’ A Sea Symphony, Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto and Symphony of Psalms, Britten’s Spring Symphony, Strauss’ Metamorphosen for 23 Strings, David Fanshaw’s African Sanctus, as well as the China’s first ever fully staged Broadway musical, Kurt Weill’s Lady in the Dark, featuring stars from London’s West End. He has commissioned new works by Chinese composers, most recently Dao by He Shaoying, which has been performed in China, France and the UK.

Smith has conducted many celebrated soloists and orchestras on Chinese tour, including soprano Dame Emma Kirkby, violinists Kenneth Renshaw and Lü Siqing, British tenor Justin Lavender, the China Philharmonic Orchestra, the China National Film Symphony Orchestra, China National Opera & Dance Drama Theater, the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, Teatro Lirico Sperimentale, and Percussions Claviers de Lyon.

In the UK, Smith launched a series of concerts at London’s Cadogan Hall featuring Xian Xinghai’s Yellow River Cantata, choral arrangements of Chinese folk songs, and his own settings of Tang poetry for SATB and piano duet. Working with renowned Canadian composer David Braid, Smith created an improvisational work fusing of Chinese traditional folk music with jazz piano and chopsticks.

In 2019, Smith’s recording of the oratorio Corona Divinae Misericordiae by David Braid with soprano Patricia O’Callaghan was nominated for a Juno Award for ‘Classical Album of the Year’. In 2020, his recording of works by British composer Ed Hughes with The New Music Players, Ed Hughes: Time, Space & Change, was nominated by The Sunday Times as one of their ‘Best Albums of 2020’, and by the American Record Guide for its Critics’ Choice 2020.

In 2011, Smith was awarded an OBE by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to music and UK-China Relations.

Smith’s compositions have been performed across China and in the UK. Most Recently, he worked with Chinese author Hong Ying on a narrated symphony to accompany her children’s book The Girl from the French Fort, premiered in 2016 at Beijing Concert Hall. He is currently working with Hong Ying on an opera based on her story, The Stone God, to be premiered in London in late 2024.

Smith has been the subject of numerous interviews on Chinese television and radio; he was the subject of a documentary by China’s national broadcaster CCTV, and he was presented with an award by Phoenix Television for his significant contributions to China’s cultural life. He has been appointed an honorary professor at the China Conservatory of Music and the Tianjin Conservatory of Music.

In 2011, Smith was awarded an OBE by Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of his services to music and UK-China relations.

Smith lives in Beijing, China, with his wife pianist Shen Yue and their son.