Continuing her brilliant career

By ANNAROSA BERMAN

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's Kiwi concertmaster does not agonise over big decisions. "If you make one, it's the right one," she declares.

Wilma Smith, former concertmaster and first violin with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, says she has no regrets about her decision to leave Wellington at the beginning of the year to settle in Australia with partner Peter Watt and their three young daughters.

"Which is not to say there was anything bad about my situation in New Zealand," she adds.

Endearingly down-to-earth (she admits to disliking solo work, says she practises only when she absolutely has to and munches on what sounds like an apple throughout our lunchtime phone conversation), Fiji-born Smith was "very surprised" when MSO musical director Markus Stenz, with whom she had worked in New Zealand, invited her as guest concertmaster in March 2001.

At the time she declined the offer of a permanent post, but when it was repeated three months later she slept on it and decided she was interested after all.

Now happily settled in the Victorian capital, Smith finds Wellington and Melbourne to be similar in many ways.

"Both cities are culturally very lively and both have terrific orchestras."

The main difference between the NZSO and MSO is that the former is a touring orchestra while the latter is city-based - a big advantage for a musician with a young family.

To Smith, the orchestra's June tour to St Petersburg, where it took part in the International White Nights Festival and received a standing ovation for its rendition of Mahler's fourth symphony at the Mariinsky Theatre, was the musical highlight of the year.

The festival draws some of the world's most acclaimed orchestras, including the Vienna and Israel Philharmonic, and the MSO was the only Australian ensemble on the guest list.

Last year had a fun highlight too.

"We started the year in grand style, with a stadium concert with Kiss. The whole orchestra got to wear Kiss makeup - we felt like rock stars for a day. It was very good to get our name out there and to let people know that this is not a dinosaur, that it is alive and well."

An accomplished chamber musician, Smith was studying in the United States in the early 80s when she became founding first violinist of Boston's Lydian Quartet, which in 1984 won the Naumburg Award, America's chamber music crown.

In 1987 she left an American career that included regular guest appearances with the Boston Symphony to start the New Zealand String Quartet. She was appointed the NZSO's first woman concertmaster six years later and maintained a hectic chamber music schedule throughout her tenure with the orchestra.

Naturally, she would like to play chamber music in Melbourne. She has already performed with the Australia ProArte Orchestra, run by MSO principal oboe Jeffrey Crellin, and has joined a piano trio comprising MSO principal cellist David Berlin and pianist Ian Munro, which will give its first concerts next year.

She will also be doing "a bit of quartet playing" in the MSO chamber music series.

Though appointed co-concertmaster, a suitable counterpart for Smith has not yet been found. When that happens, more time for chamber music will become available.

She remains Concertmaster Emeritus of the NZSO, a position she describes as "a nice gesture by the board, signifying some kind of ongoing connection".

At the beginning of this month she appeared as guest concertmaster with the orchestra for concerts in Wellington and Auckland.

Still a member of Felix the Quartet, which she founded with three colleagues from the NZSO, Smith will perform with the ensemble in Wellington, Christchurch, Hamilton and Wairarapa in November. "It's a terrific group but too hard to maintain transtasman," she says. "We are looking at this as our swan song."

With her daughters all playing the violin and the elder two playing the piano as well, there are plenty of opportunities for music-making within the family.

Smith smilingly remembers their sole public appearance. "It was just before we left Wellington. The two older girls and I went to the youngest's pre-school class and played Christmas carols arranged for three violins."

Smith says music is in every Fijian's blood because it is such an important part of the culture. Having moved to Auckland with her family at age 4, she has many relations in Fiji, where "everybody seems to be related to everybody".

Besides taking her daughters on a visit to the country of her birth, she does not have particular aspirations for the future. "I'm very happy. The MSO is a terrific orchestra and I'm loving working with them. In music you don't go up a ladder, you take each opportunity as it comes."