Wilma Smith

Wilma Smith has been the Concertmaster of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra since 2003. Born in Fiji and raised in New Zealand Wilma studied in Boston at the New England Conservatory with Dorothy DeLay and Louis Krasner before becoming First Violinist of the Lydian String Quartet, winners of the Naumburg Award for Chamber Music and prizes at the Evian, Banff and Portsmouth International String Quartet Competitions.

Wilma often played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and was Concertmaster of the Harvard Chamber Orchestra and the Handel and Haydn Society. She also performed with period instrument groups Banchetto Musicale and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra. Invited to form the New Zealand String Quartet, Wilma was first violinist for five years before her appointment as Concertmaster of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and now the MSO. She enjoys performing chamber music whenever possible.

Wilma Smith will step down as Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster at the end of 2014. “After more than a decade as Concertmaster of the MSO, the time is right for me to move on and to make way for new leadership,” Smith said