Matthew Smith, an 11-year old music prodigy from the United Kingdom, is set to become the youngest ever conductor to lead a 75-piece orchestra.
According to the Huffington Post, Matthew will be making he debut as a conductor at the Nottingham Royal Concert Hall on April 2, where he will lead the city’s Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Johann Strauss’ operetta Die Fledermaus.
[brightcove:5289478012001 default]
“I first listened to Die Fledermaus when I was seven-years-old,” he told The London Economic. “I’d seen a video of a young child conducting the nine-minute piece and really wanted to give it a go.”
Subscribe to our daily newsletter for the latest in hair, beauty, style and celebrity news.
With that ambitious attitude, he started practicing with the orchestra once a week. And now that he can conduct the full performance from memory, his debut next month will put him in the record books. The current youngest conductor record belongs a 14-year-old boy who directed the Venezuelan youth orchestra.
“Successful conductors have to be team managers, leaders, motivators and diplomats, and these people skills take time to develop and require a level of maturity that only comes with years of experience,” said Neil Bennison, the music program manager. “Orchestras can be pretty merciless to conductors for whom they have no respect, so you’d have to be a supremely confident young maestro to win over a lot of hardened professional musicians.”
Already a Grade 5 violinist, Smith also plays the drums, guitar, piano and violin.
A maestro in the making? We see it!