My earliest musical memory would be half-remembered folk songs, sung to me when I was a tiny child. Just scraps of English folk songs, even though my parents were resolutely Australian. There was the radio of course, and hymns we sang at Sunday school when I was really young.

At one point my grandfather and cousins were getting rid of their collections of 78s and because I was known to love classical music I was given all these old boxes of records. A lot of these sets had one record missing – I suppose it had got broken along the way. Sometimes even now I find myself in a concert and I realise this is the missing bit. I was at Tchaikovsky’s Fifth last year with the Concertgebouw and I suddenly realised, this is the broken record – this is the bit I don’t know as well. Certain pieces of music have this strange kind of archaeology for me.

When I was about 14, I decided I wanted to play an instrument. I went to Sydney Church of England Grammar School and the headmaster of the prep school, a man called Mr Jamieson, played the fiddle. Sometimes instead of teaching us...