Robin Zuill.

If there's one thing that can be said about Marjorie Pettit, it's that she's passionate. About everything.

But when it's music you're talking about, it goes much deeper than that. To her, there is something magical in music - something that touches her to the core, something that is in her soul. It is more than simply a hobby. Music is something she needs, something she is unable to live without. From her earliest childhood memories, music formed part of the fibre of her life.

"You know when you're meant to do something - it's like an inner compulsion.

Even at a very, very early age, I had such an emotional response to music. I remember walking into a church when I was about six, and hearing There is a Green Hill Far Away... I thought it was so magnificent. I burst into tears.

The same thing happened when I was 11 and I heard Handel's Largo.'' It is perhaps the depth of that emotion, combined with the technical excellence which she nurtures in her performers over months of rehearsals that makes her one of Bermuda's most outstanding musical directors.

Patricia Calnan, arts critic for The Royal Gazette, said recently that it is Pettit's "unique ability to transfer her own passion to her performers which evokes the emotionally-charged atmosphere that characterises her concerts''.

Nowhere were those qualities more evident than in her direction of Mozart's Requiem in D Minor at St. John's Church in June in 1991.

To many that was by far Pettit's best work, and to her it represented a turning point not only for herself, but also for Bermuda. Whether the performers were inspired by Mozart (with whom Pettit claims to be "passionately in love'') or by Pettit's direction, Calnan described it as "a landmark in Bermuda's musical history'', an evening of "unsurpassed musicianship.'' Pettit herself says little about that performance could have been improved upon. "The performers got everything right,'' she remembers.

"It was perfect.'' When she again raises her baton to begin a three-work choral concert under the auspices of The Gilbert & Sullivan Society for the Bermuda Festival, it will no doubt be another superb performance. With a very carefully-selected choir and orchestra, she will perform Brahms' Requiem, Handel's Zadok The Priest, and Mozart's Exsultate Jubilate. The 85-voice choir with soloists Akiko Murikami (soprano), and Peter Nash (baritone), will be accompanied by an orchestra led by Kerry Haslam of The Menuhin Foundation. Performances will be at St John's Church, Pembroke on January 30, 31 and February 1.

Pettit's love of music is something that developed almost as far back as she can remember, when she was a young child growing up in Scotland. Her father was a professional violinist and would often take her to live theatre orchestras where he was playing.

"I remember so clearly ...When I was eight, I went to the theatre, to one of the pantomimes they were putting on. It was a very, very lavish production of Babes in the Wood. As I watched, I couldn't believe that my father was involved in something so special, and this is what he did every day. It was a great beginning for me.

"To me there's such magic in music. I get carried away with it.'' It was during her early years that Pettit began to crave music. Her time, even as a young student in grade school, was devoted to little else than music. But her classroom lessons never seemed to satisfy her yearning for more.

Then, at 14, she began taking private lessons from her school music teacher Betty Abrines, with whom she still keeps in touch. "She had a tremendous influence on me,'' Pettit says. "She told me that if I wanted to go further with my music I would have to get my act together. She went to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, which is where I wanted to go.

But to do that, she said I would have to concentrate on my other school work.

She got me to the point that I worked four hours non-stop each night, two hours on piano and two hours on academics.'' In many ways, Abrines became a substitute mother to Pettit, whose own mother died when Pettit was a teenager. "I would take the train the 20 miles from my home in Kilwinning to Betty and her husband's home in Glasgow on Fridays and I'd sometimes stay the night. They would take me to concerts, chamberand orchestral - it was something I wouldn't otherwise have been exposed to.

"When I told my father I wanted to go to the Academy, he asked me if I was absolutely sure. He tried to put me off in any way he could. He once told me that it would be like a lead weight around my neck for the rest of my life.

"I think he just wanted me to realise how hard it was, what an awful lot of work was involved, and how it wasn't at all as glamourous as it appeared. He told me what he did was like working in a factory, only he would churn out notes.'' At 18, Pettit got her wish and was accepted to the Academy, following in the footsteps of two of the most influential people in her musical life, her father and Abrines. During her four years there she studied piano, voice and the french horn.

"Music was all I cared about in my teens. I didn't do any of the ordinary things that people do, like learn to drive a car. I had no social life whatsoever. As a music student, I started my classes at 8 a.m. and I didn't finish until 10 p.m. It was my life.'' Pettit came to Bermuda in 1966 to teach at Prospect Primary School. She was 23 at the time and had a few years earlier given up hope of becoming a professional accompanist when she realised it would never pay the bills as well as a steady teaching job. She intended to stay here only for the duration of her three-year contract, but within a short time she met Tony Pettit. They married in 1969 and decided to make Bermuda their home.

That same year she accepted a position at Saltus Grammar School, teaching history and music. While there she also worked a hectic schedule of productions, including three Saltus concerts a year, and sometimes another on top of that, all the while trying to raise her two sons Andrew, now 22, and Nicholas, 18.

Four years ago, "totally exhausted and burned out'' Pettit decided to leave her teaching job at Saltus. "I loved classroom teaching,'' she says. "I don't regret leaving, but I do miss teaching. I miss the team effort. I think my time at Saltus was really one of the happiest times of my life. It was utterly fulfilling. But I know that when I left Saltus it was really the right thing to do at the time.'' It is with a renewed vigour that she now goes about directing. For the past four years, she has taught privately in her home for just two to three hours each day. The rest of the day is hers, she says. She has directed such major productions as The Mikado and Carousel, as well as choral concerts Bach's St.

John Passion, Bach's Mass in B Minor, Mozart's Great Mass in C Minor, Handel's Israel in Egypt, and Bach's Magnificat with the Mendelssohn violin concerto.

Many of her works have been staged by Gilbert & Sullivan, with whom Pettit has a close relationship. In fact, Pettit places much of the credit for what she does with G & S president Marjorie Stanton, whom she says is a "brilliant'' producer.

Pettit selects her works carefully, based on what she thinks the singers and, more importantly, the orchestra can manage well, and what best appeals to the Bermuda audience.

She schedules 16-weeks of rehearsals, one night a week, before every programme, and singers are expected to attend as many of the rehearsals as possible. She has a no-nonsense approach toward practice and has no qualms about dropping someone from the performance if they take a half-hearted approach to rehearsal. In fact she takes a roll call at each rehearsal just to make sure.

It's not that she expects too much from the performers, only as much as she gives herself. "I have to know every single note before I start,'' she says.

"People don't want to be under the baton of someone who doesn't know what's going on. But by the same token, I am intolerant of people who are half-hearted.'' It's not that she doesn't have any sense of humour about what she's doing either. She takes the rehearsals seriously, but every now and again lightens a sometimes tense atmosphere with a quick joke or some teasing.

In fact, it is probably her brand of humour and her infectious laugh that make the very demanding rehearsals seem less intimidating to the performers. And because she loves what she does, so too do her performers.

Outside of her music, she says she loves a good laugh and is bothered when people feel the need to discuss only music with her. When she's not conducting, she spends time writing poetry and is working on a book of short stories which she hopes to publish during the coming year.

For her, there is now a perfect balance between work and life at home with husband Tony. "I remember a conversation I once had with (opera great) Jon Vickers. He was telling me about the need for balance between professional and private life. He is someone who has managed to achieve that balance. He has a strong interest in the church and he has reached the top in what he does.

"I believe I now have the best of both worlds, and I wouldn't want it any other way. I have a very happy marriage and a very serene home life. But I am also able to enjoy music to very professional standards.'' `Even at a very, very early age, I had such an emotional response to music. I remember walking into a church when I was about six, and hearing There is a green Hill Far Away . . . thought it was so magnificent. I burst into tear.' RG MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 1993