Kettering Concerts

Kettering Concert 2025-05-18

Piano trio
Rohana O’Malley (violin), Martin Penicka (cello), Karen Smithies (piano)

May concert

Sunday 18 May 2025, 3pm
Kettering Community Hall
Tickets will be available on-line
Ticket price to be determined
Stay for the post-concert afternoon tea, meet and chat with the musicians.

Rohana O’Malley

Rohana O'Malley (née Brown) has been a member of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra since August 2009. She moved here from Melbourne, where she completed her Bachelor of Music with honours at the University of Melbourne, majoring in performance. She studied with Elizabeth Sellars and William Hennessy and was awarded several prizes for performance, including the Zelman award, Lady Turner Exhibition and Wright Prize. After university she spent two years at the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) studying with Alice Waten.
In 2008 she moved to Sydney where she completed a Fellowship with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and also began studies for her Masters at the Sydney Conservatorium. The following year she travelled to Salzburg to participate in the Mozarteum University’s International Summer Academy.
As a member of the Australian Youth Orchestra, Rohana toured Europe in 2007 and was appointed concertmaster for the 2008 season. In both 2003 and 2006 she was a finalist in the Hephzibah Menuhin Memorial Awards. Also in 2006 she was awarded the prize for the best performance of a New Zealand work at the Gisborne International Music Competition. Rohana regularly performs chamber music, and has had many highlights such as performing for Pope Benedict during his visit to Sydney for World Youth Day in 2008. Aside from performing, Rohana also teaches violin and piano.

Martin Penicka

Martin studied with Lois Simpson and Julian Smiles at the Australian Institute of Music. He graduated in 2002 with the degree of Bachelor of Music (Performance) with first class honours. During his studies, he played in many chamber ensembles, most notably with the award-winning Con Brio Trio. In 1999 Martin Penicka took part in a tour to the USA organised by the Performing Arts Unit to complement the Art Express exhibition in the Corcoran Gallery, Washington DC.
A solo artist in the Symphony Australia Conducting Program in 2001, Martin Penicka has been a casual member of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He was a semi-finalist in the 2004 Symphony Australia Young Performers Awards and the 2MBS FM Young Performers Award. Martin Penicka has been an ANAM Academy Musician at the Australian National Academy of Music. In 2006 and 2007, Martin was involved in the Sydney Symphony fellowship program. Martin joined the TSO in August 2008.
Martin regularly plays in chamber music ensembles around Tasmania and has appeared on several ABC classic FM Sunday Live Broadcasts.

Karen Smithies

Karen Smithies moved to Tasmania from the Central Coast of NSW in 1998. She completed her Masters in Music Performance at the University of Tasmania in 2003, studying with Beryl Sedivka and David Bollard. Upon graduating from Sydney Conservatorium with a Bachelor of music in piano performance and accompaniment, Karen was awarded the “Mollie Neal” scholarship for excellence in Accompaniment. She has appeared as soloist and accompanist with regional orchestras and major vocal ensembles across the Central Coast and in Sydney.

Karen has made several national ABC and 3MBS FM broadcasts with artists such as cellist Christian Woijtowicz, violinists Marina Phillips and Romana Zieglerova, baritones Christopher Richardson and Michael Lampard and the TSO Brass and Friends.

Karen is currently lecturer in Accompaniment at the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music and has lectured in piano studies at the University of Tasmania since 2000. In that time she has been busy as a repetiteur, and accompanist of undergraduates, postgraduates and visiting artists at the Conservatorium and throughout Tasmania. Karen regularly plays as orchestral and rehearsal pianist for the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and repetiteurs for the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Chorus. Karen lives in on Hobart’s Eastern shore with her husband Matthew and four children.