Wilma Smith & Friends (Piano Quartet)

Wilma Smith (violin), Caroline Henbest (viola), Alexandra Partridge (cello), and Andrew Leathwick (piano)

Since Wilma Smith, celebrated Kiwi violinist, left NZ she has annually brought together different groups of musical friends she thinks might create exciting chemistry and they design programmes full of variety and appeal, from premières to revered masterpieces and undiscovered gems from every musical era.

Wilma Smith, formerly Concertmaster of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the NZSO, was born in Fiji and raised in New Zealand. She studied in Auckland then at Boston’s New England Conservatory before becoming first violinist of the Lydian String Quartet, winners of the Naumburg Award for Chamber Music. Invited to return home to form the New Zealand String Quartet, Wilma was first violinist of the group for five years before the NZSO appointed her Concertmaster. She now teaches violin at Melbourne and Monash Universities.

Born in England, Caroline Henbest studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School and the Guildhall School of Music. Following several years as violist in the Mistry String Quartet, she moved to Australia to take up the position of Principal Viola with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. She is based in Melbourne where she also teaches at the Australian National Academy of Music.

Andrew Leathwick is a pianist and composer studying piano at the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne. Andrew has a Master of Music with First Class Honours from the University of Waikato. In 2013, Andrew won the New Zealand National Concerto Competition. Wilma commissioned Andrew to write a piano quartet especially for this tour as she feels his compositional style is original, while being very accessible and appealing.

Born in Wellington, Alexandra Partridge holds a Masters of Musical Arts from the NZ School of Music. She is currently studying at the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne. A devoted chamber musician, Alexandra’s piano trio, the Queensbridge Trio, were finalists of both the 2014 ANAM Chamber Music Competition and the Great Romantics competition held at the Melbourne Recital Centre.

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