Remembering Michael Smith-Thompson
We lost a marvellous musician this month.
Michael joined the Royal Marines with no musical background at all and spent eighteen months in the School of Music learning drums and bugle from scratch. He picked up percussion again in the RAAF upon arrival in Australia where he also found his love for arranging and prolific is an understatement. His library of arrangements and adaptations spans hundreds of titles.
Over the years he conducted and played with Moomba Band, Stonnington, Monash Concert Band, the Christmas Carols across Monash, Manningham and Maroondah, and of course 4/19 Association Band.
His creation and conducting of the Anzac Community Band every year deserves a special mention and it’s up to us, those who knew him, to ensure it continues as I can think of no greater legacy to Michael.
I played under him at Monash Concert Band, at the Carols, and at 4/19. What I remember most isn’t the programs or the concerts, it’s his face on the conductor’s stand. He never had a poker face up there. I would throw in a little extra drum or bass guitar fill every now and then just to see whether he was actually listening. The sly smile that appeared on his face every single time showed he always was.
We had our own private deal. He would never look at the bottom of the score, where my part was written, as long as I kept turning up. That was it. That was the whole agreement, and he kept his end of it for years. It sounds small written down, but it wasn’t. It was trust, and it was also his idea of a joke that only the two of us were in on.
That was Michael as a musician. He didn’t just conduct people, he built a place for them. Anyone who wanted to play, he found a way to get them a part, and if the arrangements didn’t have a part for them, he rewrote them until it did. That instinct, to make sure nobody was left standing there with nothing to play, says more about who he was than any list of bands ever could.
That’s the version of Michael I’ll keep with me, watching from the stand, waiting to see if I was going to throw something extra into the part he’d promised never to check.
Rest in peace Michael. You will be missed.