Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Thursday 19 September
12:45 PM - 1:15 PM
Choral music only arrived in China in any meaningful way in the middle of the last century. Although China has a number of professional choirs and tens of thousands of amateur choirs, their impact on the rest of the world has essentially been zero.
Nicholas Smith will explore the birth of China’s choral scene, the status of choirs in China, the function of choral music in Chinese society and the factors that have caused Chinese choral music to remain in a state of arrested development.
Lunchbox/Soapbox
Sometimes there’s nothing better than a good rant. Every Thursday, the Wheeler Centre hosts an old-fashioned Speakers’ Corner in the middle of the city, where writers and thinkers can have their say on the topics that won’t let them sleep at night.
Featuring some of our most compelling voices across just about every sector of human endeavour you can imagine, the themes dominating Lunchbox/Soapbox are proudly idiosyncratic. BYO lunch. Ideas provided.
Featuring
Nicholas Smith
Nicholas Michael Smith, OBE is currently the artistic director and chief conductor of the Peking Sinfonietta and the International Festival Chorus, both based in Beijing, China. Both offer regular seasons featuring the world’s top soloists.
Under Smith’s direction over the past ten years, the Peking Sinfonietta is now widely recognised as offering China’s most innovative programming and authentic performances, while the International Festival Chorus is acclaimed as the PRC’s best choir and the only group in mainland China working consistently to introduce the western choral-symphonic repertoire to Chinese audiences in Beijing and beyond.
He has worked with many groups worldwide, including Teatro Lirico di Spoleto and Les Percussions Claviers de Lyon, and in Asia, the Asia Philharmonic Orchestra, the China Philharmonic Orchestra, the China National Film Symphony Orchestra and the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra.
Over the last 10 years, Smith has conducted and helped to bring about numerous concerts of significance to the development of western music in China, including PRC first performances of works ranging from Bach’s St John Passion to Elgar’s The Music Makers and Britten’s Spring Symphony, as well as the PRC’s first ever fully staged Broadway musical Lady in the Dark, which featured stars from London’s West End.