Fort Macleod International Festival

Nic is the violist and founder member of the Smith Quartet.  Regarded as one of the world's leading exponents of contemporary music, over 200 works have been written for them by many of the world's leading composers.  Collaboratively the quartet have worked with a diverse range of artists including jazz saxophonists Andy Sheppard, rock group Pulp, Malian singer Rokia Traore and dance companies Siobhan Davies and Ultima Vez.

The group's touring has taken them from North and South America to South East Asia and Scandinavia.  They regularly appear in Europe's leading festivals including the Venice Biennale, Musica Viva in Lisbon and the Cheltenham and Huddersfield Festivals in the UK.

The Smiths often broadcast for the BBC and 2005 appeared in the acclaimed BBC film Holocaust - A Music Memorial Film from Auschwitz performing Steve Reich's Different Trains.  The film went on to win a BAFTA and an EMMY.

The Quartet records for Signum Classics and have released amongst many, albums of Steve Reich and Philip Glass the latter being described by Gramophone Magazine as "one of the ten most important CDs of contemporary music".  Recently released is the first of three recordings featuring the entire repertoire for strings and piano by Morton Feldman with the celebrated pianist John Tilbury.  Their next album Dance will be released this autumn and features commissioned works from fifteen composers.

Nic is also Head of Strings at Trinity College of Music in London and leads one of the most vibrant string departments in Europe.  There he conducts several of the college orchestras including Trinity's String Ensemble with whom he has toured throughout Europe collaborating with many international soloists including Rivka Golani, Nick Daniel, Dmitri Ashkenazy, Darko Brlek, William Howard, Deniz Gelenbe and jazz musicians saxophonist Julian Arguelles and the groundbreaking American pianist Uri Caine.  He was for many years principal guest conductor of the English Sinfonia and music director of the Karl Jenkins Ensemble who's infamous Adiemus CDs toped the UK charts for many years.

2009 saw the launch of the Greenwich International String Quartet Festival of which Nic is one of the artistic directors.