VM: My mother was a concert pianist until she married and she used to have classical music on the radio constantly at home. She also played for several hours a day. I used to watch her and then climb up on the piano stool and try to copy her, my fingers flying all over the keyboard. I used to pretend one piece was Chopin, another Debussy etc. When I was about five, my mother decided to teach me because I played so much.

MOL: Did you like to practice?

VM: Perhaps because of my first few untutored years, I enjoyed improvising and composing tunes best and my mother, who taught me until I was 15, used to have to supervise my practice sometimes. However, I always spent several hours voluntarily at the piano each day.

MOL: Was anyone else in your family musical?

VM: My father learnt piano when he was younger and also listened to music and read anything he could about it. Later, as a journalist working for one of Sydney's two daily newspapers he was given the job of music critic.

MOL: What did you like most in musical life as a child?

VM: From the age of five, whenever there was a matinee concert that I can attend with my father, I would go. It must have looked a little unusual to see such a young child walking down the aisle of the Sydney Town Hall holding the hand of the music critic. It was especially exciting when I knew the music being played. When it did not, I used to sit in the audience and try to count the wrong notes. After the concert I would rush back to the office with my father and draw pictures while he dashed off the review for the next edition.

MOL: What did you like the must in your musical life as a child?

VM: Going to concerts. I was aware of who all the great artists were who toured Australia because, as music critic, my father got tickets to every major concert and would always bring home the concert programs. These were kept in a special place and to me they were great treasures. I was also very lucky because the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) was almost the sole concert Management in Australia, with ABC orchestra and classical music radio stations in each state. So all the concerts given by touring artists were broadcast live. Artists who toured would also tour country centers which meant having to play more concerti and recital programs on one tour than in any other country. Under these circumstances only a few great artists could tour in a year. However, as I listened to all the broadcast of the pianists, I became familiar with the artistry of musicians like Arrau, Barenboim and Ashkenazy.

MOL: When did you start to play in public?

VM: At age 11. I was offered my first chance to play solo on ABC television. I had never been so excited about anything.

MOL: Did anything follow directly from this?

VM: Not directly, but by the age of 14, I had given seven concerto performances with orchestra, including two in the Sydney Town Hall as a competition prize (The Sydney Opera House did not exist then).

MOL: Were there any musicians living in Sydney who influenced you greatly during these years?

VM: Yes. Ernest LLewellyn, the leader of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He and his wife Ruth were very good friends of my parents and also Hephzibah Menuhin with whom he had toured Australia playing sonatas. He had been in the United States for a year based in New York when I was about 14 and had spent a lot of time as an observer at Juilliard. When he returned to Australia and visited my parents, he told us about this wonderful institution. From that moment onwards it was my dream to study there some day.

MOL: Did you play many concerts prior to entering the Juilliard school?

VM: I had many opportunities to perform in concerts and ABC broadcasts, both as a soloist, accompanist and chamber musician, many more than students from other countries who later entered Juilliard with me. Apart from ABC concerts and broadcasts, because Australia was still a culturally developing nation, there were many music societies and clubs run by unpaid voluntary committees. This gave me a chance to play so often that I felt completely at home on the concert platform and I took advantage of every opportunity.

MOL: How did you come to audition at Juilliard?

VM: Indirectly through acceptance in the Alfred Casella International competition in Italy. In those days it was necessary to leave Australia and study abroad in order to get the top teachers and the exposure to a wider and more intensely professional concert scene. Most of the promising students stayed for a few years before returning to Australia. You were more or less expected to return rather than stay overseas and try to make a career there. Our Concservatorium did not enter students for international competitions nor did they mention them as a way of starting in international career because it was assumed that you wouldn't be following that path. Fortunately things have now changed for the present generation of young musicians who are proving that with the more of young musicians who are proving that with the ore sophisticated teaching in Australia now, they can go overseas and compete with the best from everywhere and win even first prizes. As most of my contemporaries had already left, I had graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium, was working without a teacher and had begun to explore other ways of going overseas. I started visiting the US Consulate information library where I read about one musician after another who had begun their careers as a result of winning competitions. I decided there was nothing to stop me from entering one although it was a most unusual thing for a resident Australian musician to do back then.

Nancy Salas, a piano teacher from the conservatorium who had visited Juilliard a few weeks before I left for the competition pointed out that I would have the opportunity to go to New York in the way home and audition if I spent a month in England in between. So I applied to Juilliard for an audition.

MOL: You were obviously accepted?

VM: Yes, and with great relief as I had decided that if I was not, I would give up playing then and there.

MOL: What was life like in Manhattan then?

VM: Well, first of all, New York was a shock to the system after quiet Sydney which by comparison then, had few skyscrapers and little crime. I felt like a tiny ant in a giant anthill often totally overwhelmed by the sheer size, pace, population and noise of Manhattan. I was very lucky to spend three of my our years in residence at International House where there were other Juilliard students to ravel to and from school with and always interesting people from all areas of study and the world.

MOL: What was it like at Juilliard then (1970-76) ?

VM: Again I was completely overwhelmed by the achievements of many of my fellow students as well as the scope of musical activity in America, the number of competitions, career development opportunities, managers and the magnificent concert performances which I heard all around me. And of course to have Lincoln Center as our school campus was heaven on Earth to all musicians. For the first time in my life I was in an environment where teachers believed we could reach for the skies and encouraged us to do so. I had wonderful teachers for everything. I remember with particular affection my piano teacher Josef Raieff, under whose guidance I flourished, and my chamber music teacher, William Lincer, whose studio accompanist I was for several years. In my final year, I was greatly encouraged by winning the Linda Joan Israel Memorial Scholarship. Mrs Israel has continued to give me encouragement and take an interest in my career.

MOL: What did you do after graduating the Juilliard school?

VM: I had the choice of returning to Australia or going to England. I went to England to further expand my career. Staying in England, because of its location, would help me to play concerts in Europe and North America and also, strangely enough, it would give me a better chance to get lots of concerts in Australia.

MOL: Were your expectations fulfilled in London?

VM: Yes and no. I did have opportunity to do two concert tours of Australia, the second consisting of 27 concerts in 17 days over 6 out of 7 states. But being in England with no family and just practice and teach, while cost of living was too much to bare, it meant that I was spending most of my time in teaching to make my ends meet. I used to grab whatever practice time I could on any piano at any location. It was really difficult.

MOL: Did this prevent you from playing concerts?

VM: No. When my mother had taught me as a teenager, she said that if I ever traveled to play concerts, I would not always have a piano at my disposal so I had better learn to memorize without the presents of instrument. My chamber music teacher at Juilliard had emphasized the same thing. He (William Lincer) used to emphasize the same thing. He used to tell us that we should be able to sit back in an armchair and envision ourselves playing the entire piece. For most of my seven years in London I did about half my preparation for every concert on the top of double-decker buses.

MOL: What about entering competitions?

VM: I had hoped to be able to enter competitions to pave the way for a career, but under these circumstances, it was not possible.

MOL: What did you do instead?

VM: I made the customary Wigmore Hall debut but without money to invest in a promotional recording afterwards or the contacts which I would have developed had I studied in Britain or won a British competition, I felt there was no one I could comfortably approach at the time.

MOL: But you say you still played concerts while you were in London.

VM: Yes. After my Wigmore debut, I was very lucky to meet an American lady who had won an international award for publicity while working in New York. She had attended my Wigmore recital and afterwards offered to help me learn how to promote myself. So, I learned how to present myself in the best as possible without the help of expensive managers.

MOL: What was it like to act as your own manager?

VM: Without professional training or even the ability to type, extremely stressful and time consuming. However, I realized that there would be no more concerts if I didn't.

MOL: Did you get a manager afterwards?

VM: After my Alice Tully Hall debut in New York City several years later, I was able to get into the management in New York and later, in England.

MOL: Did you do anything else memorable while in England?

VM: Yes. For several years, I attended concerts on the Southbank almost every night. It was such an excellent chance to hear all the great names in the business and at far cheaper prices than New York, I also continued what I had begun in New York, visits to fine Art Museums. In England, this extended to castles, cathedrals and historic towns. When I played in Europe, I always left time afterwards to see all these old treasures which were so novel to anyone who had grown up in Australia. I soaked up the atmosphere of the times in which the music I loved so much was written.

MOL: Tell us how your illness began?

VM: First I noticed I had difficulty concentrating while playing and difficulty memorizing music. This was followed for several years by worsening fatigues. The doctors were unable to offer a diagnosis until one day I felt a lump on my breast. It was cancer and I was just beginning a year with 48 concerts all over Australia and New Zealand and my first CD release. The specialist said, "I think we can cure the cancer if the cancer system can't be x-rayed, we will have to remove lymph nodes to see. This could lead to permanent swelling in the arm later." I said that I couldn't play the piano with a swollen arm, to which he replied that at least I would have my life. I said my life would be the equivalent of living death without being able to play.

After three agonizing weeks, I decided to have just the tumor removed, then radiotherapy, which had a lesser chance of causing swelling in the arm, plus chemotherapy. I hoped that this would work.

MOL: How long did you fight your illness?

VM: Six months as an outpatient with radio and chemotherapy together, which induced chronic fatigue syndrome. It took another year before I could begin to gain some strength and two and half years from the date of diagnosis until I could play for a few minutes a day.

MOL: What was the worst part of it all?

VM: Having to be totally idle for a few years after working an average of 70 hours a week most of my life. I did not know whether I would ever recover, or, if so, sufficiently to resume my career. I felt that without this assurance, it would be hard to have the will to survive the illness, and worse, its on-going treatment.

MOL: How did you get through such tough time? If possible, can you share with us what was your emotional experience was like?

VM: The only thing I could focus on was what had happened to me several years before. Few years' back, a heavy metal door had smashed my elbow. I went to church and I said, "God, if you want me to be a pianist, you heal my elbow or point me to a new path. I went home thinking that sometime in the next few weeks I might have a brilliant idea for a new career. I woke up next morning to find all the pain gone and the arm fully mobile. Thinking I might be suffering from delusion I rushed to my physical therapist who said something paranormal had happened. The arm was healed. I repeated this incident to the doctors and nurses in the hospital during my treatment and said that I believed if God had done it once for me he could again take over where medical science left off and restore me to sufficient health to continue my career. I believed he could heal a swollen arm if that ever happened too. Over the last several years I have got progressively better and stronger, to the amazement of my doctors and my family.

MOL: Tell us about life after the illness. What does music means to you now?

VM: When I had cancer, my doctors told me that the only way to resume working long stressful hours would be to learn to become as stress free as possible. I began to work on that immediately. However, I think I unconsciously achieved more than that. As I resumed living again, I think I found what Arthur Rubinstein described when he spoke of the "love of life" which he discovered when his suicide attempt failed and he realized he had his life back. This shows in my playing.

MOL: Are you in good health now?

VM: Yes and expecting to stay that way.

MOL: What repertoire do you play most?

VM: My favorites are Chopin, Schumann, Beethoven and Mozart. I have learned most of Chopin's music and performed probably over half.

MOL: What do you like to do besides music when you have free times?

VM: Gardening and watching cricket and television programs with beautiful scenery. I also enjoy walking in the country.

MOL: Where do you live?

VM: In Sydney right on the edge of the CBD. I have a tiny two story terrace house from the early colonial period, about 120 years old - very old for Sydney. It is surrounded by city office buildings and high rise apartments and is very close to the main rail station and airport. This is important when travelling in Australia, as the distances are enormous compared with Europe.

MOL: What kind of piano do you have?

VM: I have two Kawai pianos, an upright and a GS40 grand, just over 6 feet long which fits almost wall to wall in my ten feet wide house.

MOL: What do you want to tell young students?