Nigel Short

Nigel David Short MBE (born 1 June 1965) is an English chess grandmaster, chess columnist, chess coach and chess commentator. Short earned the Grandmaster title at the age of 19, and was ranked third in the world by FIDE from January 1988 to July 1989. In 1993 he became the first English player to play a World Chess Championship match, when he qualified to play Garry Kasparov in the World Chess Championship 1993 in London, but lost.

Early life

Short was born 1 June 1965 in Leigh, Lancashire. He grew up in Atherton, going to the St Philip's Primary School on Bolton Old Road. He studied at the independent Bolton School and Leigh College. He was a member both of Atherton Chess Club, which was founded by his father, David, and later of Bolton Chess Club, which had initially rejected him, aged seven, for being too young.

Career

Prodigy to grandmaster

A chess prodigy, Short first attracted significant media attention, as a 10-year-old, by defeating Viktor Korchnoi in a simultaneous exhibition. In 1977 he became the youngest ever participant in the British Chess Championship by qualifying three days before his twelfth birthday. Two years later, at the British Championship in Chester 1979, the 14-year-old tied for first place with John Nunn and Robert Bellin, earning his first IM norm. He became (at the time) the youngest International Master in chess history, by scoring 8/15 in the Hastings Premier in 1979/80 and thus breaking Bobby Fischer's record of 1958. Participating in four World Junior Championships (1980–1983), Short achieved his best result during his first attempt in which he placed second to Garry Kasparov in 1980 at Dortmund. He was awarded the grandmaster title in 1984, aged nineteen—becoming the youngest grandmaster in the world at that time.

Nigel Short (singer and choir director)

Nigel Short is founder and artistic director of the choir Tenebrae and Tenebrae Consort. He was previously a member of The King's Singers.

Short was a chorister at Solihull Parish Church. He then studied singing and piano at the Royal College of Music before singing as a countertenor with a number of ensembles including The Tallis Scholars, Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral choirs and The King's Consort. He then pursued a solo career in opera and oratorio, singing several roles in opera productions in Europe and for the English National Opera and Opera North.

In 1993 Short, then aged 27, joined The King's Singers. It was while performing with this ensemble that Short conceived of creating a larger group of singers capable of more "passionate sounds" combined with "the precision of ensembles like The King's Singers", and a more "theatrical" style of performing within religious buildings, involving movement around the performance venue as well as dramatic use of lighting and ambiance. The result was Tenebrae, founded in 2001. The choir was launched that year with a performance of Nigel Short's own composition, The Dream of Herod. The choir has extensively toured to critical acclaim, and won the Choral category of BBC Music Magazine's Awards in 2012.

Nigel Short (disambiguation)

Nigel Short may refer to: