I was playing in a summer music festival in America, and one of the pieces was the Beethoven Grosse Fugue which is very loud and vigorous for a long time. By the time I was halfway through it I was getting exhausted. I did some push-ups every day and it did help. After completing studies at Auckland University in 1976 Smith won an Arts Council award to study at the New England Conservatory in Boston. That led to work with the Boston Symphony Orchestra which gave her a chance to observe closely some of the world's top conductors.
Conductors are such an unusual breed.
It was fascinating to see what makes a great one and to see what gives them that charisma and authority, both personal and musical, to hold sway over 90 or so hard- core professionals. An orchestra can be a cruel beast. Someone like Kurt Masur who is a great conductor, had just that sort of stature. I enjoyed watching Simon Rattle in action. He was quite young then but undaunted by the fact that the Boston Orchestra was one of the oldest, most established, in America and most of the players had had more experience than he had.