Name: Nicholas Smith
From: Exeter, Devon
Living in: Beijing

Nick read music at St. John’s College, Cambridge, and in 1991 decided to see what China had to offer when he signed up as a VSO volunteer.  After developing a liking for Chinese baijiu liquor while eking out an existence in parts of China, Nick relocated to Beijing in 1995 where he has lived ever since.  A self-taught linguist, he works as a translator for Shanghai AIAL Information Consulting Company Limited, though his passion for music burns unabated.

During his time in China Nick has developed his musical career as a conductor, working for seven years with the Baroque Chamber Chorus of Beijing, and for four years with the International Arts Salon, a professional opera company for whom he conducted Rigoletto, La Traviata and Carmen.  Nick’s time in the Chinese countryside made him very much aware of the closeness of the community and its important to music-making.  In 2002 he co-founded the International Festival Chorus (IFC), a not-for-profit community choral group of international singers which performs regularly at The Forbidden City Concert Hall.  The success of the group in bridging the cultural divide between western and Chinese choral traditions is unparalleled in China, and Nick became the first conductor to lead a group of international musicians in a performance of Xian Xinghai’s Yellow River Cantata in 2003.  In that year he also conducted Beijing’s first ever fully-staged Broadway show - Lady in the Dark - which boasted a truly multi-national cast.

Nick has formed close relationships with some of China’s leading musical figures, notable among them music director of the China Philharmonic Yu Long and conductors Fan Tao and Wu Lingfen.  He is a professor in the Choral Conducting Department at the China Conservatory of Music and artistic director of the Peking Sinfonietta, Beijing’s first professional non-government chamber orchestra.  Nick has appeared as a guest conductor with the China Philharmonic Orchestra, the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Film Symphony Orchestra, and in 2004 served as a juror at the 4th World Choir Games held in Xiamen.

He has a seven-year-old son, Alexander, who is beginning to demonstrate his own flair for music both on the piano and as a member of the International Festival Children’s Choir, the youth choir of the IFC.