Could Nicholas Simons be B.C.'s answer to Emmanuel Macron?

by Charlie Smith on May 14th, 2017 at 9:33 AM

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The NDP MLA for Powell River–Sunshine Coast, Nicholas Simons, is fluently bilingual in French and English, just like French president Emmanual Macron.

Simons is also a former symphony musician and played cello on a Rise Against album that went gold.

That sets him apart from other MLAs in the legislature.

And Simons might be the only B.C. politician who could match Macron's answer to the question: do you have a musical thunderbolt?

As the tweet below indicates, Macron's reply, an homage to Rossini, was stunning, given that it came from a politician.

https://twitter.com/operaandthecity/status/863089224207273984

The full-length French-language interview is available here.

When Simons was running for the B.C NDP leadership in 2011, he stopped by the Georgia Straight building and performed a cello duet with arts writer Jessica Werb, who's also a classical musician.

You can see it in the video below.