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Andre Rieu: "Say 'I love you' every day"

Andre Rieu is the world’s most flamboyant violinist. At 66 his youthful sense of fun on stage and his tremendous talent have made him an international star.

He's the biggest selling classical musician in the world has just announced a major tour of Australia.

He spoke to Sunday Night about how achieving fame at 45 was a blessing in disguise.

Rieu formed his own orchestra and played in the local nursing homes for years before he had his first hit at age 45, with a waltz.

"I think it's very helpful when you …have that dream and work hard for it and then you can stay longer, so that's what I did in my case. I'm going on until I die."

The Maestro has developed his very unpretentious taste for music over years of traveling the world and says he just wants to delight his audience.

Kerri-Anne visits Andre's castle home
Kerri-Anne visits Andre's castle home

"For me there's only good and bad music so this division classical, not classical for me it doesn't exist"

"Michael Jackson wrote fantastic music and Bach wrote shit music. But you know, it's not because it's Bach it's okay."

"I never understood that somebody says, 'Oh I love music, but I'm not educated.'"

"So what? Open your heart and come to the concert and I'll show you how it is to love music. I want to touch you. I want to make you cry I want to make you happy, and send you home happy."

In recent years Andre has faced some major challenges. From the 2008 world tour with a multi-million-dollar Vienna Night spectacular which almost sent him bankrupt.

Then two years later Andre was diagnosed with vertigo and unable to work for several months.

"It was scary. I wake up and the whole room was spinning around."

But aside from this temporary health scare he is an exceptionally fit 66-year-old ready to tour with his new music.

"Four times a week I work really hard and my trainer told me last week that, although I'm 66 he, he looked at me and said 'I think your body is like 40 years old now' so

Andre has been with wife Marjorie for 42 years and they have two sons.

Like Andre, Marjorie grew up with strict parents, so they decided to rebel together, taking off for a three weeks to live 'as hippies'.

"Before those three weeks I studied my whole life violin and she studied her whole life at university and we said, 'Come on let’s do something else,' so I locked the violin in a cupboard and threw away the key."

"I was 24, 25. But it was not only that, we went into therapy to get rid of the whole education of both our parents, so that was very helpful, very, very helpful."

Andre grew up in a musical family and his father was a cold, authoritarian figure at home and at work.

It isn’t the sort of parent Andre wants to be.

"I am not the conductor my father was. He was a conductor. You know. He was a dictator."

"It’s very difficult for fathers to say to sons 'I love you' or 'I'm proud of you'."

"[I say] 'I love you' every day and I kiss them. My father never kissed me. Yeah I think it's strange."

Watch the full interview in the video above.

To find out more about Andre's new music and tour dates, visit his website here.