[5] Grants from the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture[6] enabled Villarini to study piano in Paris and Vienna.
[4] Her dissertation was entitled A Study of Selected Puerto Rican Danzas for the Piano.
[7] Villarini's teachers included Claus Adam, Jean Marie Darre, Carmelina Figureoa, Alexander Gorodnitzky, William Kroll, Eugene List, Walter Panhofer, and Dieter Weber.
[8][9] Villarini received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1981.
[4] The late New York Times music critic Harold C. Schonberg wrote: "I have heard Liszt's Transcendental Etude in f minor by hundreds of young pianists in different piano competitions.