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Rupert has performed with Beatles’ producer Sir George Martin, Olivia-Newton John, Demis Roussos, John Farnham, Anthony Warlow and members of Frank Zappa’s band, to name a few.

A classically trained veteran of the Viennese Chamber Opera, he is just as adept at wrangling an electric violin in a hard-hitting blues band as he is performing solo recitals in the stillness of a museum.

With 30 years’ experience presenting classical, ambient, world music and blues on stages across Australia, Europe, UK and the USA, and with a brace of albums under his belt, it would be fair to say Rupert has more than one string to his bow.

Sitting and chatting at the kitchen table with Rupert and his partner Tanya I get the impression he is not your typical showman or attention-seeking rock star.

“I have known a few,” he says with a grin, “but I’m fortunate in that the people I work with are generous and humble and talented.”

Rupert’s words on music and teaching come from a place of quiet contemplation, a wellspring of deep consideration.

“To me, music is all about humanity,” he reflects. “Playing music is a passport to participating in each other’s cultures, a way of learning from and sharing with each other.”

He speaks passionately about his music academy in Wangara, with its focus on holistic learning.

“A holistic education, in any context, is where one side does not cut the other down – we don’t try to achieve excellence at the expense of mental health, and we don’t try to achieve recognition at the expense of our own quality as a person,” he says.

“If you don’t have time for reflection in your life, your chances of moving people with your music are about zero.”

Many Toodyay locals will know Rupert from his poignant rendition of The Last Post on Anzac Day.

And while he modestly cites a chronic shortage of buglers as the reason for his presence at the Dawn Service, demand for his appearances at these iconic events has grown steadily over the years.

“We started at a primary school in the Perth hills, then a dawn service at Kalamunda for 5000 people, then one at the military barracks in Swanbourne,” he says.

“The violin brings a certain emotional content, but the bugle has a special place – it was involved in the battlefield and signifies respect for those who lost their lives.”

Born in Melbourne, Rupert came to Toodyay in a roundabout way, landing in Perth in 2007 after a stint at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.

“I was down in Fremantle every second day, busking or doing little gigs and stuff, doing a lot of world music – it was fun,” he says.

He and his partner Tanya eventually settled in Toodyay, in this “little oasis where the plains meet the hills”.

“I love these old historic towns – that was a kind of coincidence in a way – but we are really enjoying living here, living on the land, waking up and it’s quiet.

“There is time to ponder things.”

Or to borrow a descriptor from one of Rupert’s many online videos:

Quietness is discovered to have always been there – we just had to stop and listen to it.

This quietude has been the secret of the saints and mystics throughout time, who through years of seclusion and meditation practice could attain a deep stillness.

An opportunity to reset your own inner compass to your heart and dial down your inner volume levels to quiet.

Rupert grew up in what was, musically speaking, a strictly classical household.

“Mum and dad only played classical music on the record player,” he remembers.

“But suddenly a big brother or sister will bring home a Beatles record, and then Creedence is on the stereo, and mum and dad are saying ‘Turn that down’,” he chuckles.

It was on weekends, while staying with his older sister and her university friends in Carlton, that Rupert got his first taste of what we would now call ‘world music’.

“We’d go to a little falafel joint or Indian takeaway or something, and what happens when you walk in the door is you hear the music of that culture,” he says.

“Chinese and Arabic music, African and Lebanese music – it was very rich.”

Rupert’s prodigious musical ability and dedication to study soon led him to the Austrian capital, Vienna.

“It was on invitation from one of the great teachers and a wonderful opportunity to play in orchestras and operas in the city where the music was written.”

He likens the experience to seeing original paintings by the great masters.

“To play with musicians whose teachers’ teachers go back in a direct line to Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn … it was a potent experience of that classical tradition.”

Rupert’s solid musical training held him in good stead on his return Australia, finding plenty of work as a “sideman to the stars”.

But his musical direction changed following a chance meeting with legendary Australian keyboard player Allan Zavod.

Rather than taking payment for some recording sessions, Rupert took the jazz great up on his offer of lessons in improvisation.

“He said ‘your playing’s good but your improvising sucks’,” Rupert laughs.

“It was life-changing – my whole professional career did a 180. I had a sort of epiphany and started playing all my own classical music.”

He began drawing inspiration from his surroundings, and recently performed a site-specific series of four classical concerts for the Western Australian Museum, thematically based on the exhibits: astrophotography and the night sky, ancient Egypt, the archaeology of planet Earth through time, and the migration of humanity.

“Big themes, and these are multimedia works with a huge, six-metre screen and me doing a narration and playing music,” he says.

His works are also inspired by landscapes and histories, including his own.

“Everything is affected by your life story,” he points out. “They say everyone really paints a self-portrait when they paint, and there’s a lot of truth in that.

“Your life story is in all your work as an artist – the wonderful and the difficult phases.”

Rupert walks with a cane, the result of a horrific car accident when he was young.

“I got very badly damaged, it’s a life-long thing,” he says. “I don’t feel sorry for myself by a long shot, but it changes your life – you end up being more of an introspective kid, you don’t play the sports, so you end up doing music.”

Self-esteem and well-being are at the centre of Rupert’s teaching.

“It doesn’t matter whether I’m talking to an orchestral player or a session muso in a rock band, it’s about how can we make this a positive, nurturing experience for everyone.”

Both Rupert and Tanya have a lifelong background in meditation, with Tanya a qualified psychotherapist and counsellor.

“We teach meditation and we run retreats,” Rupert says.

“As an artist it goes hand-in-hand, it’s a search for self, it’s looking beneath the surface of things.”

Rupert likes to look at the non-material, humanistic side of things, “what some might call the spiritual”.

“I wake up and I listen to the news, and in terms of education I ask ‘What are we doing?

And what could we do differently?’

“I think they’re good questions.”