Aaron McMillan (11 February 197714 May 2007) was an Australian classical

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

. He attended

Glenaeon Rudolf Steiner School Glenaeon Rudolf Steiner School is a private school, private, Comprehensive School#Australia, comprehensive, co-educational, non-denominational, Waldorf education, Steiner Pre-school education, early learning, Primary school, primary and Secondar ...

Middle Cove, New South Wales Middle Cove is a suburb on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia 9 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Willoughby. Middle Cove is bounded t ...

, near

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

. A keen basketballer, at age 15 he captained his local basketball team to a state championship and was named most valuable player. He hoped to gain selection in the national basketball team at the

2000 Sydney Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from 1 ...

. After an injury during training forced his departure from the sport, he then moved to his next passion, music. He continued piano studies with

Neta Maughan Neta Anne Maughan (born August 1938) is an Australian piano teacher. Her teaching career has spanned 63 years (2019) and in that time she has taught thousands of students in her main discipline of the piano, vocal, theory and accompaniment train ...

(teacher of

Michael Kieran Harvey Michael Kieran Harvey (born 7 July 1961) is an Australian pianist and composer whose career has been notable for its diversity and wide repertoire. He is renowned for commissioning, performing and composing new music. He has especially promoted ...

Simon Tedeschi Simon Tedeschi (born 1 May 1981) is an Australian classical pianist and writer. Early life Tedeschi was born in Gosford to Mark Tedeschi QC, Senior Crown Prosecutor for New South Wales, and doctor Vivienne Tedeschi, the daughter of a Polis ...

, and her own daughter

Tamara Anna Cislowska Tamara-Anna Cislowska is an Australian concert pianist. She has performed across many countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, South America, Italy, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Greece, The Netherlands and Poland, and has played w ...

). At age 16, he was the youngest Australian pianist to gain a Licentiate Diploma of Music with distinction. He took part in the 1996

Sydney International Piano Competition The Sydney International Piano Competition is a music competition, presented in Sydney and broadcast live throughout Australia and internationally. It is held every four years, over a three-week period in July–August, and is internationally r ...

. In addition to performing, he became an entrepreneur. He organised and financed many of his own concerts and recordings, but also set up a company called "Wayfarer" to promote other musicians. He organised a concert at the Sydney Town Hall where 20 Australian composers performed their own works - these included

Dulcie Holland Dulcie Sybil Holland AM (5 January 1913 – 21 May 2000) was an Australian composer and music educator. Best known for her contributions to music education through her involvement with the Australian Music Examinations Board, Holland has in ...

Miriam Hyde Miriam Beatrice Hyde (15 January 191311 January 2005) was an Australian composer, classical pianist, music educator, and poet. She composed over 150 works for piano, 50 songs, other instrumental and orchestral works and performed as a concert ...

and

Elena Kats-Chernin Elena Davidovna Kats-Chernin (born 4 November 1957) is a Soviet-born Australian pianist and composer, best known for her ballet ''Wild Swans''. Early life and career Elena Kats-Chernin was born in Tashkent (now the capital of independent Uzbek ...

. As an adult his other love was

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

. He coached other players and through the game he met

Gavin Robertson Gavin Ron Robertson (born 28 May 1966) is a former Australian cricketer. He was a right-handed offbreak bowler and a lower-order batsman. Career Robertson made his debut for the New South Wales Blues in 1987. Two seasons later he moved to Tas ...

and

Steve Waugh Stephen Rodger Waugh (born 2 June 1965) is an Australian former international cricketer and twin brother of cricketer Mark Waugh. A right-handed batsman, he was also a medium-pace bowler. As Australian captain from 1997 to 2004, he led Australi ...

, and

Tim Farriss Timothy William Farriss (born 16 August 1957) is an Australian musician, founding member and the lead guitarist of the rock band :INXS. Early life and the formation of INXS Farriss was born in Perth, Western Australia, to Dennis and Jill F ...

from

INXS INXS (a word play, phonetic play on "in excess") were an Australian Rock music, rock band, formed as The Farriss Brothers in 1977 in Sydney, New South Wales. The band's founding members were bassist Garry Gary Beers, main composer and keyboar ...

, who all became his friends. In 2001, McMillan was diagnosed with

hemangiopericytoma A hemangiopericytoma is a type of soft-tissue sarcoma that originates in the pericytes in the walls of capillaries. When inside the nervous system, although not strictly a meningioma tumor, it is a meningeal tumor with a special aggressive behavior ...

, a rare

brain tumour A brain tumor occurs when abnormal cells form within the brain. There are two main types of tumors: malignant tumors and benign (non-cancerous) tumors. These can be further classified as primary tumors, which start within the brain, and secondary ...

. It was discovered while he was being photographed for the cover of an album. A small pimple on his eyelid prompted him to see a doctor, who diagnosed the condition. He was operated on by

Charlie Teo Charles Teo AM ( zh, 张正贤; born 24 December 1957)''Who's Who in Australia'', ConnectWeb. is an Australian neurosurgeon. Early life and education Teo was born to Chinese-Singaporean parents who immigrated to Australia. He attended The Sc ...

and the tumour was successfully removed. The first of two ''

Australian Story ''Australian Story'' is a national weekly current affairs and documentary style television series which is broadcast on ABC Television. It is produced specifically by the ABC News and Current Affairs Department. The program first aired on 29 ...

'' programs on

ABC television ABC Television most commonly refers to: *ABC Television Network of the American Broadcasting Company, United States, or *ABC Television (Australian TV network), a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia ABC Television or ABC ...

, entitled ''Playing for Time'', followed his surgery at

Prince of Wales Hospital Prince of Wales Hospital is a large of Tertiary referral hospital and large of teaching hospital from Faculty of Medicine in Chinese University of Hong Kong in Sha Tin, New Territories in Hong Kong.. Named after Charles, Prince of Wales (now ...

. Among his various charity work, he was an ambassador for Charlie Teo's "Cure for Life Foundation". The tumour returned in 2003. It did not respond to treatment, and by 2005 he could no longer play the piano. McMillan performed solo at the

Sydney Opera House The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in Sydney. Located on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, it is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive buildings and a masterpiece of 20th-century architec ...

on two occasions. Because of his illness, he could not perform at a planned third concert but instead made it an opportunity for him to present other pianists. He released a 9-CD box set of his recordings, which he produced from his bed in the palliative care unit of St Vincent's Hospital in

Darlinghurst Darlinghurst is an inner-city, eastern suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Darlinghurst is located immediately east of the Sydney central business district (CBD) and Hyde Park, within the local government area of the City of Sydney. I ...

. The

Governor of New South Wales The governor of New South Wales is the viceregal representative of the Australian monarch, King Charles III, in the state of New South Wales. In an analogous way to the governor-general of Australia at the national level, the governors of the ...

Marie Bashir Dame Marie Roslyn Bashir (born 1 December 1930) is the former and second longest-serving Governor of New South Wales. Born in Narrandera, New South Wales, Bashir graduated from the University of Sydney in 1956 and held various medical positio ...

, officiated at the release.ABC New
article
retrieved on 14 May 2007 His story is told in Susan Wyndham's book, "Life In His Hands", which deals with both Aaron and Charlie Teo, his neurosurgeon. He died on 14 May 2007 at St Vincent's Hospital. Just three days prior to his death, at his hospital bedside, he was awarded a

Mo Award The Australian Entertainment Mo Awards (commonly known informally as the Mo Awards) were an annual Australian entertainment industry award, that where established in 1975, to recognise achievements in live entertainment in Australia. They were l ...

for services to the entertainment industry.

Family

His parents, Brian McMillan, and Gail née Robinson, met on a

meditation Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally cal ...

retreat. Soon after Aaron's birth, his father left to become a

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

monk in

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

, and did not see his son again until he was 15. In the meantime, the marriage was dissolved, and his mother married Giles Puckett, and they had two additional children. Aaron, an only child, gained two siblings. Aaron was influenced by his grandparents' Roman Catholicism, by Rudolf Steiner's

anthroposophy Anthroposophy is a spiritualist movement founded in the early 20th century by the esotericist Rudolf Steiner that postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world, accessible to human experience. Followers ...

, by his father's Buddhism, and other spiritual ideas.

Awards

Mo Awards

The Australian Entertainment Mo Awards (commonly known informally as the

Mo Awards The Australian Entertainment Mo Awards (commonly known informally as the Mo Awards) were an annual Australian entertainment industry award, that where established in 1975, to recognise achievements in live entertainment in Australia. They were l ...

), were annual Australian entertainment industry awards. They recognise achievements in live entertainment in Australia from 1975 to 2016. Aaron McMillan won one award in that time. (wins only) , - , 2006 , Aaron McMillan , Outstanding Contribution to Australian Music , , -

Notes

External links

www.aaronmcmillanmusic.com

Obituary in ''The Sydney Morning Herald''

Transcript of ABC ''Australia Story'' documentary

The Homily preached at the Funeral Mass {{DEFAULTSORT:McMillan, Aaron 1977 births 2007 deaths Deaths from brain tumor Australian classical pianists Male classical pianists People from New South Wales Deaths from cancer in New South Wales Waldorf school alumni 20th-century classical pianists 20th-century Australian male musicians 20th-century Australian musicians