Nicholas Smith on China’s Choral Tragedy: 50 Years of Arrested Development

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.