Smerus

Some drink deep from the river of knowledge. Others merely gargle. - Woody Allen Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen - Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Souvenir de Kiev 7.12.2013 (not me playing alas!)

David Conway / Smerus

British, born in London, married, piano and sometime bassoon player, three children, five grandchildren, general dilettante.

Graduated from King's College, Cambridge University in 1971: BA in economics and natural sciences (maths and psychology). MA Cambridge (for those who don't know, this is a sort of English joke) 1975. As a mature student I completed my PhD at University College London (2002-2008). (Dissertation on the entry of Jews to musical professions in the period 1780-1850). Cambridge University Press published my book Jewry in Music: Entry to the Profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner at the end of 2011.

Married to Nadia, who was born in Prague but was brought up in Slovakia. We now own a mediaeval house in Levoca, Slovakia, which we are gradually restoring. We also organise an annual international music festival in the town.

Both Nadia and myself were (for too many years) elected local government councillors for a London borough. Nadia was Mayor there in 1993-4, almost certainly the first mayor in the UK to have been a past president of the Slovak Communist Youth Movement. She was awarded the MBE in the 2009 New Year's Honours List, for 'services to the National Health Service and to the community in North London'.

I was an early contributor to the Find a Grave web-site. Over 2000 of my photos are still up on the site. I am gradually uploading those which are relevant to the appropriate articles in Wikipedia.

My employment history has included the London Stock Exchange, the textile industry, and management consultancy. I divided my time until 2016 between researching, writing and lecturing on music and social history, lounging about in Slovakia, and working on development aid projects in the former Soviet Union on behalf of the European Commission and DFID. In 1993-6 I was the first Englishman to live in Kaliningrad since the Royal Air Force bombed it to pieces in 1944 (when it was still Koenigsberg). From 1998-2000 I was based in Brussels, Belgium, heading an EU project and travelling throughout the Commonwealth of Independent States. Recent projects have been based in Leningrad Oblast, Georgia and Ukraine. From February 2009 to February 2012 I was based more or less full time in Kiev working on the INOGATE programme. In 2015 I worked with the EU Eastern Partnership Youth Unit in Kiev and completed a project in Azerbaijan.

I am now retired and act as Chair of the opera company HGO in London.

Personal Weblinks

Music festival 'Indian Summer in Levoca' which I organise each year in Slovakia
My magnum opus
Kyiv blog 2009-2010.
My more extensive (cluttered) userpage on English Wikipedia.