Although delayed, I always remember a first time meeting Gayle Smith and at our beloved ISOMATA, aka, Idyllwild Arts Foundation Summer Camp and just when we were all so very young around 15 or so in the 6000 foot high Jacinto Mountains which was a scintillating time making grand classical music and in my view, hearing Gayle play her beloved 'Cello and so maturely at that time in her young life! Gayle possessed an 'overview' for one so very young and as I've previously written on here she had an aura of mystery or feeling  all of us girls at camp in Dorm 5 felt about Life and the Life Beyond always Looking Up, as it were, to a far greater "Power" even when 14 or 15! We became friends and it was a true joy to be invited to a Slumber Party at the Glendale home of then dummer and our friend, Carol Messmer's!! I was allowed by my protective parents {with Poppa Music Director of Jr./Sr. High School Summer Camp orchestra} to attend the Slumber Party Weekend which was very rare for              me due to my daily practise of my stringed instrument Every Day without          any Excuses which as time went on became apparent in my Solo playing and        not just as a Concertmaster of an outstanding Summer Camp Orchestra but      as a soloist which would lead to study w/GOAT String Artist of All Centuries and whom Gayle revered!  Her studies with Cello Great, Pablo Casals at aged 15 &  in Puerto Rico, were Stellar and still capture imagination Today ~ At that for me forever remembered Slumber Party, I can still "see" in my mind's eye our  Gayle sitting in the middle of a large semi circle of we young teenage girls & from Summer Camp in the Fall listening to Gayle speak with head tilted up and toward the Stars with her matured thoughts about the Universe and How it played into our own lives Then ... Wherever 'our' Gayle be now, {& I'm quite sure she Is With God} she is still the rare girl with eyes set toward the skies            and meaning the Universe we, here, do still not know but when America in     due time sends Men to Mars, I am sure Gayle Smith will be There to then in         her own unique way, Welcome Them with Joy!!! Missing her Earthly and on         here presence, may those others who knew Gayle well, if financially able be       on here to contribute a little bit.  I hope to return with a small donation and    it may have to wait until 2026, but right now I am feeling Close to Gayle and I     would also Thank her parents, Mr. & Mrs. Smith for their unique daughter &    whom was my friend in both music and frienship for decades now ... RIP dear friend, Gayle ~ 'Liz' 3rd September, anno 2 0 2 5 {delayed due looking after        my Honey all day 2nd of September, Anno 2025 ... }

Knowing Gayle Smith for decades first meeting in Idyllwild at Summer Music Camp and hearing her play Cello so wonderfully, I took to her immediately as also Concertmaster and Pupil of Jascha Heifetz, GOAT Violinist of All Time. We once had a slumber party in Glendale at a mutual musician friends' home with parents supervising us and I recall Gayle in the middle of a circle of we, her friends, looking upward and out to some far away perceived place & then wondering what she was thinking about when she began to tell us she did think there was more to Life than we could know ... I sensed Gayle was a sort of mystic although I was so young I did not fully comprehend the meaning but just sensed this! She was not so much as 'Fun' but of another dimension and which I do believe drew many people and Men to her some of whom weren't all they pretended to be ... It must be known Gayle Smith had a rare musical talent with DNA Technique to portray her in depth presentations of GOAT Music for the Cello and all Orchestral Composition. I knew her musically & feel a real sense of loss of one who contributed to the spirituality of Life and via her Violoncello always. So 'Fun' doesn't really do Gayle Smith Justice but She could be Loads of Fun when she wasn't dreaming into a future unknown yet she did draw many into her rare mystic Circle of friends ... We are all missing her and thinking of The Gayle Smith We All Knew and Loved now Miss ... r i p dear one, elisabeth 'm' aka, 'lizzie' ~ 2nd February, 2025, Mr. Heifetz's would be #124th ... Say Hello to JH and GP plus Mozart/Bach/LvB and Brahms! Okay, 'Kid' ~ 'Lizzie' Violin ~

Having just learned of the passing of a lifetime Friend, wonderful 'Cellist, Gayle Smith, whom I met at a Summer Music Camp affiliated with USC, we became close friends for a long time as teenagers & also as we went out into the Big World to make our individual Marks on The World of Music ... Gayle was a  very spiritual person whom I remember when we were teens sitting on a rug at a Girls Slumber Party hosted by the parents of another Friend from Idyllwild, Carol Messmer, and all weekend when she did sit staring up pondering the Universe and its never ending magnificence. This memory has stayed with me for decades ... She also visited me in London, UK, when I had moved there on my Fulbright Fellowship in Violin Performance at the RCM, following studies with GOAT Violinist, Jascha Heifetz, subsequently filmed now on YouTube of we 7 original pupils of Jascha Heifetz's Original Violin Master Class & where Gayle Smith also studied with JH colleague, Gregor Piatigorsky, GOAT Violoncellist, making music and  together often ... Her musical gifts were beyond substantial and imaginative ideas always In Sync with the Music and Style's of All Compositions she interpreted ... We lost touch but I know she Wowed when living in Oslo, Norway, collaborating with Great Norwegian Violinist, Arve Tellefson, a renowned known violin colleague of mine, who obviously found Gayle's musical pedigree of the highest order ... I am truly     deeply upset with the news of Gayle Smith's passing and on June 9, 2024, which is a huge shock not only to myself but to many loving friends from our youth including dearest Camilla {nee Sheldon} Scott; dear Linda Rose, fabled Violin Pedagogue in Los Angeles and throughout the US and a beloved friend from the time of our mutual meetings at beloved Idyllwild Arts Foundation in the San Jacinto Mountains ... I shall forever remember Gayle Smith as the most beautiful Cellist and intriguing personality of my musical youth ... Deeply saddened for her Family and many Friends all over the world, May the Soul of Gayle Mae Smith be eternally blessed by God who welcomed His daughter to Heaven 9. 6. 2024 . . . 

R I P ~ dearly loved Gayle ~ from 'Lizzie', Cami,  Linda R. and Gerry R. plus all other Isomata Friends ~