Our new year heralds the ninetieth birthday of the Australian musical polymath Larry Sitsky. Four generations of audiences, artists, teachers and students have now benefited from his vast knowledge, unfailing creativity and exuberant musicianship. Born in China’s Tianjin (then Tientsin) to emigré Russian-Jewish parents, his early years were marked out for Japanese occupation followed by revolution. When he was seventeen his family sought refuge in Sydney, and by the mid-1960s he had joined the staff of the then Canberra, now Australian National University School of Music, of which he is still an active member today. His early years, with their…