John Foreman, the man behind some of the biggest events in Australian music, says he owes his success to all the lessons he learnt as a kid.
Foreman has worked on the Sydney Olympics, the Logie Awards, Carols by Candlelight, Australian Idol and is the creative director for the Sydney Australia Day events.
"I would have been a very different person had it not been for the wonderful musical education that I was lucky enough to receive," he said.
Foreman has been awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to the performing arts.
He's also the musical director for Channel Nine's Queen's birthday Gold Telethon on Monday, which raises funds for Sydney Children's Hospital with performances from Reece Mastin and The Voice 2014 winner Anja Nissen.
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Foreman's first musical teacher was his dad, who taught him to play Chopsticks on the piano at age six.
Four years later he won a scholarship to study piano at Newcastle Conservatorium.
Then, as a "particularly small" year seven student, Foreman played the keyboard in an older kid's SKA band.
"We were afraid of our skin-head audiences and we would lock ourselves in the band room in between sets to make sure nobody would attack us," he said.
Foreman is now an ambassador for the Music, Count Us In campaign, which aims to raise the status of music in schools.
"At the same time on the same day, kids around the country sing the same song," he said.
"Last year we got over half a million students."
