Emma Wilson - Hitting the high note

All good love stories should have a happy ending, and, despite immense trauma and loss, Emma Wilson’s does.

Now one of Queenstown’s most passionate music teachers, for many years Emma’s song was far from a happy one.

Originally from England, she’s battled on though through the loss of a dear first husband to cancer, and a precious brother, both way too young. But bright, colourful Emma still managed to come out the other side singing.

In the end, a trip to New Zealand to find herself amidst her grief, delivered Emma the best high note she could ever hope for – second husband Mark Wilson.

Raised in Dronfield, near Sheffield, England, Emma was “socially awkward” and discovered music brought “a sense of togetherness”.

Brother Martin Wightman, later a popular Queenstown teacher, had all the talent, she reckons. “I had to work at it.” Martin played trumpet, and Emma, who also joined choirs, bands and orchestras, played trombone. Their parents eventually joined in, forming their own British ‘Brady Bunch’ brass band of sorts. “We’d play Christmas carols for the community and perform at the local pub.”

Emma graduated to pantomimes and musicals which became her passion.

Academia came easy, and Emma attended Cambridge University for her teacher training. “It was dreadfully posh,” she grins. “Homerton (Teachers) College was like the poor country cousin. They all looked down on us there, particularly as I came from the north.”

She immersed herself in the uni choir, performing glamorous requiems under top King’s College conductor Stephen Cleobury. No Ubers in the 80s. Emma biked home after a night out drinking, providing she passed the “If I can find my bike, I’m sober enough” rule.

During uni holidays, washing up for a neighbourhood hotel, she met first husband Howard, whose parents owned it.

Marrying at 22, Emma taught in a primary school in Lancashire where she “fell out of love” with music after cultural differences prompted a complaint to the principal that music was “the work of the devil”.

In 2000 Howard was diagnosed with a brain tumour, beginning the most challenging 10 years of Emma’s life, nursing and caring for him through serious seizures and suffering. The local brass band and annual Dartington Summer School kept her going.

After he passed, a broken-hearted Emma took a five-month sabbatical in NZ where her brother Martin, about to become a father, now lived.

“I’d planned to write a book about the 10 years with Howard’s brain tumour. I had a little image of me sitting in the middle of a little field with sheep, staring at the mountains and writing.”

That was 2010. The book’s now almost finished, but in the ensuing years Emma added one of its most glorious chapters.

She not only fell in love with Queenstown from the moment she landed, but also with one of the town’s musical darlings – blind musician Mark Wilson.

“Mark was running the Community Choir when Martin introduced me, so I joined the rehearsals,” Emma says. “Twenty-five people were hanging off Mark’s every word in that room as he played ‘O Holy Night’ to rag time, then Mozart, falling on his knees under the piano as we sang ‘fall on your knees’,” Emma laughs. “I was utterly in awe of this musical genius.”

It was hard to ‘get noticed’ so Emma admits to “shamelessly taking advantage of a blind man”, deliberately parking her car up by his apartment so she had an excuse to walk him home after Christmas Extravaganza rehearsals.

They married in 2012 after Emma completed her UK teaching contract. Unfortunately, Mark too had battled a brain tumour since 2009, however, in this case Emma could celebrate a happier journey.

Teaming up with local music teacher Alison Price, Emma turned her passion to teach kids into founding the Lakes Community School in 2014, catering for up to 100 kids. It all became too hard financially, until Bill Moran, former directory of NZ Treasury, along with Jillian Jardine, launched the Turn Up The Music Charitable Trust. “We now have 150 kids in individual lessons and another 150 in groups, some subsidised if parents can’t afford it.”

In 2017 she bought brother Martin’s Kip McGrath tutoring business. “I absolutely loved running that place,” she says. Tragically, Martin passed away in 2018, plunging Emma into more deep grief and loss.

However, in true Emma style she bounced back as the life of the party. She can now be found playing anything from Crocodile Rock and South American dance music to a Meat Loaf medley and Mission Impossible theme song, with the Queenstown Party Orchestra.

Her passion for kids who are missing out has her currently training as a dyslexia assessor with SPELD NZ. “I think it’s immensely empowering for these kids. They’re not stupid. They just need to learn differently,” she says.

As for the book it’s still being edited, with the highs and lows of the Queenstown chapter now included.