I was born in 1958 in Melbourne, Victoria in St Margaret’s Hospital.

I lived for the first seventeen years of my life in Ripplonlea, a suburb that housed iconic National Trust homes, the ABC TV studios and one of the largest Jewish communities outside of Israel.

It happened to be the same year that Madonna, Michael Jackson, Andrea Bocelli, Neil Finn and Ellen DeGeneres were born, and the same year that Jim Henson set up his company (leading him to create the Muppets) and the TV show “Bandstand” began on Chanel 9, that helped launch many careers in the music industry in Australia.

My mother was a wonderful singer and pianist and there was always music in our home.

Although my brother and sisters were into very different musical styles, we managed to fuse classical, Beatles, Bay City Rollers and Fiddler on the Roof into one week at any given time under the same roof.

We didn’t have very much money growing up and my Dad left when I was ten. I can remember making our Christmas tree decorations out of newspaper and Klag (a very milky sticky gum solution) that would transform into endless reams of paper chain link garlands. We had the best looking Christmas tree in the street though and I loved to decorate our old house.

I also remember the very strong community in our street, where all our neighbours would share food and fruit that we had grown and hand it over the fence. My mother was the organist at the little Presbyterian Church in Balaclava where everyone would come together and commune and sing and eat together in the Church Hall after the service. I always thought everyone had these kinds of experiences growing up and it wasn’t until many years later I realised that this was far from the true.

I remember the cultural life in Melbourne being very strong in the 60s and 70s.

My first experience of Opera was at the Palais Theatre in St Kilda where my mother took me to hear Dame Joan Sutherland sing La Traviata when I was fifteen years old. It changed my life forever, and I became fascinated with the power of the human voice and I wanted to become a singer from then on.

All the streets in the city seemed so steep as I walked to my orthodontist appointments at the top of Collins Street, and even the street that I lived in seemed like a mountain when I had to run to catch the bus to Melbourne Boys High School. The teachers and experiences at that School made up everyday for the physical challenges I seemed to face getting there.

We never came home until the street lamps came on at night, after roaming all day with my friends collecting bottles that we carried on our home made billy-cart. We were able to buy a huge bag of lollies for ten cents on Fridays when I had friends “sleep over” and watch Deadly Ernest late night horror movies on our black and white TV, from under the blankets of course.

We only ever had holidays in Victoria, mainly at the beach in Rosebud and in later years at Anglesea. My father was an avid seaman and an engineer and he combined his two loves by building boats and the first Hovercraft until he ran it into a bridge on the Eildon Weir. Mum wasn’t happy!

It wasn’t until I was sixteen that I travelled to Adelaide and Sydney with Moorabbin City Pipe Band when we competed in the Australian Pipe Band Championships.

We won our grades and I also won the Australian Drumming championships. Funny how all these experiences have added up eventually in all the work that I do as a musician. Perhaps it was my keen sense of rhythm that made becoming a Conductor so appealing – those people that I have to keep in time rely on me to help keep them together perhaps.

I didn’t travel overseas until I was twenty three and went to Hawaii first class. That has never happened since.

Life was very simple growing up in Melbourne, and I always felt safe on the streets.

I think we have lost our sense of community over the years though, but being involved in choirs, especially now as a Conductor, has always given me a sense of family when I’ve travelled the world. I think Melbourne is the most beautiful city to live in now, and I love everything it has to offer. I feel so blessed to have been born in this beautiful country, having seen so much poverty in other parts of the world. I just hope we can feel safe on our streets again one day though.