I am lying in bed, doped up on pain killers with a mouth full of cotton and four wisdom teeth taken out. My dad has just called the Head of Strings, Dr. Walter Mony at the Victoria Conservatory of Music to sign me up for a Music History course. The phone call doesn’t stop there. Dr. Mony then asks my dad what instrument I play, what level I am at, and why I want to take that particular course. After those questions are answered, he says to my dad, “I want your son to come down here right now for an audition.” My dad comes into my bedroom and says, “you need to get out of bed right now. You have an audition to go to.” I was not pleased at all. I had to get out of bed with no preparation at all, and do an audition with the Head of Strings, Dr. Walter Mony! I played Massenet’s Meditation from Thaïs from memory and a few scales (including a very difficult scale that I was not familiar with that I made up fingering for). The whole time I was playing at the audition, Dr. Mony was sitting there with his eyes closed. My immediate thought was that he didn’t like what he was hearing. Once the audition was over Dr. Mony said, “I want that boy.” He took me to see the registrar and registered me for the post-secondary Music Diploma Program. I became Dr. Mony’s student. At that time my strongest instrument was the piano. After I studied violin for a while with Dr. Mony I got discouraged and said to him that maybe I should switch to the piano. He looked at me gruffly and said, “don’t worry. I’ll make a violinist out of you if it kills you!” To make a long story short, I survived and graduated from the Conservatory in both violin and piano and went on to the University of Victoria in the third year of the music program there.