New Year Honours: Hawke’s Bay opera singer adds to her family’s legacy of achievement

Naomi Baker-Wenley has been awarded the Queen’s Service Medal for her decades of contribution to NZ Opera. She founded Opera Hawke's Bay in 1986. Photo / Paul Taylor

Opera singer Naomi Baker-Wenley credits her success to a large network of supporters and her upbringing in a “family of achievers”.

Baker-Wenley was recognised in the New Year Honours with a Queen’s Service Medal (QSM) for her contributions to opera in New Zealand over several decades.

She founded Hawke’s Bay Opera in 1986, brought nationally and internationally renowned performers to Hawke’s Bay, founded the Mary Doyle Choir in 2018 and is a performer herself.

She said she found out she had been nominated a while ago, without knowing who specifically had nominated her, but she had forgotten about it by the time she learnt she had received the QSM.

“I didn’t really believe it would happen anyway to be quite honest,” Baker-Wenley said.

“Whoever has nominated me, the people who have made comments, I am grateful for their faith, their love and support.”

She said it was nice to receive the recognition, but she was saddened that some of her biggest supporters had passed away and would not get to see it.

Her brother James Morgan, former editor of the Hawke’s Bay Herald-Tribune, was a QSM recipient himself for his services to the community before he passed away in 2020.

“I know he would have supported it if he was here,” Baker-Wenley said.

She said she came from “a family of achievers”.

“My father had a lovely voice and my mother was a brilliant pianist and that helped.”

She started singing at 4, although she only got proper training later in life.

“I’ve always been interested in singing and in opera in particular. It just carried me away to listen to it. I knew nothing about it really and I know very little about it even now.”

She said her proudest moment was being on stage for the final night of the opera La Traviata in the first year Opera Hawke’s Bay was set up.

“All the hours and days of work and there it had all happened and it was this beautiful thing, this gorgeous music I had been able to bring people in Hawke’s Bay,” she said.