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s born in Transylvania, Romania, and both my parents were in the academic world -
father was a linguist professor who spoke six languages and knew 12 , and my
her was a mathematics, physics and chemistry professor. At the same time my
er played the violin and also played chess. When I was six and a half years old he
me that I would learn to play the violin and that he would teach me. I said that I did
want to learn to play the violin because I wanted to be an airplane pilot. His reply
that I would be a pilot who can play the violin. I can play the violin but I cannot fly a
ne. It seems I must’ve had talent that was recognized early because I started winning
competitions in my hometown of Satu-Mare, and eventually I got a scholarship to the
tal of Romania to study at the best music school in the country. When I was 15 years
my family migrated to Australia where I continued doing well with the violin and
ning more and more competitions, until eventually I won an Australian government
rseas scholarship to study at the Juilliard School in New York with the famous violin
agogue Ivan Galamian. It was fortunate that I won a full scholarship at The Juilliard
ool since I would have had to return to Australia otherwise and I had only come to
w York on a one-way ticket. The Australian government scholarship was helpful in
ther way : Australia had introduced draft around the same time and the thought was
the young men of 18 would be sent to Vietnam. As my birthday had been picked
m the lottery draft the scholarship allowed me to postpone the draft until 6 years
r when there was a change in the government and the draft policy. While at Juilliard
t my Post-graduate diploma and I became a teaching assistant to the Juilliard String
artet, besides winning the prize to perform the Prokofiev First violin concerto with the
iard Orchestra. That was followed by winning other competitions, the more notable of
m being the first prize in the Naumburg competition, and in the Carnegie Hall
rnational Violin competition of American Music. All of this helped establish a concert
eer that took me to all over the musical world.