Photo © Natela Grigalashvili

Nadia Beard is a journalist, author, critic and pianist. Her writing appears in The New Yorker, the Financial Times, National Geographic, the Guardian, the Economist, and the Times Literary Supplement, among many others. In addition to her writing, she is also the programme director for ZEG Storytelling Festival and managing editor at Coda Story.

Nadia was editor-in-chief of The Calvert Journal, an award-winning magazine covering contemporary art, culture and society in Russia, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus. Prior to that, she was Moscow correspondent for The Independent.

She studied at University College London, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Tbilisi Conservatoire. She has been an Alfa Fellow and was named a 2017 Kathryn Davis Fellow for Peace from Middlebury College. 

Her first book, THE MELODY OF THINGS, is now out in the UK with Faber and will be published in the US in January 2027 with W. W. Norton.

beardnadia [at] gmail [dot] com

This Ronisch piano was made in St Petersburg at the turn of the 20th century and it stayed in that city until the 1917 revolution, when its owner, clinging to the coattails of a group of fleeing White Russians, went with them to Paris, piano in tow.
What a treat to indulge my hermit tendencies and abscond to the woods as writer in residence at @studiorichtermahr, a place so peaceful I apparently forgot to take more than two photos. Thank you @yuliamahr @maxrichtermusic and co for having me. I&rs
My chaotic and ultimately useless reading method when considering a new philosophy. I profiled Yuval Sharon, artistic director at Detroit Opera and an incredible thinker, for @ft_weekend. Sharon just wrote a book, A New Philosophy of Opera, which is
Procrastinated on one bit of writing by writing something else for the FT -- about a new biography of Paul Gauguin by Sue Prideaux which draws on a manuscript of his memoir that, thought lost for decades, reappeared in 2020. The new material doesn't
I loved being back in Tbilisi this summer, but found the city laced by a sinister atmosphere following the passage of the foreign agent law this spring and the brutal crackdown on those who opposed it. For @newyorkermag this week, I wrote about the k
Another year of the world's dreamiest festival @zegfest 💘 100+ incredible speakers, including @ekoweshun and @jonlee001, who were thoughtful and often hilarious to be in conversation with. Until next year (which we're already plotting)
A strange, wonderful corner of Europe. God bless the artists who open their homes/factories/sanatoriums/thermal bath to writers et al. What a week
The rarest afternoon. 20 short minutes spent walking among 600-year old figures, standing at eye-level with the Brancacci Chapel frescoes, currently under restoration. Masolino and Masaccio, from 1427
Excited to make my debut in @newyorkermag this week with a profile of the strange, extreme, mildly goofy artist Andrei Molodkin. In a former sanatorium in the Pyrenees, Molodkin is filling a 32-ton Swiss bank safe with artworks by Picasso, Rembrandt,
An essay in @ft_weekend on the "wunderalten" -- the older prodigy -- and the relationship between age and creativity. I listened to a lot of music while writing this essay, going backwards and forwards in one or other composer's oeuvre to
A new neighbourhood and new Bach in its honour 👀
After 20 years as a visitor to @royaloperahouse, I spent a happy November afternoon on one of its stages. An honour to talk about Bronislava Nijinska and the avant-garde in the Clore Studio and watch dancers at the @royalballetschool in action. Thank
So long this September 🥀
A month on the continent 🐚
Exhilarating, played with notes and peppered with mistakes but yesterday was a first and it was fun! Thanks @matthewhardy86 for the opportunity and for keeping us all in check 🎶