My Story: An Early Episode in My Career

Playing and teaching music has been a privilege throughout my life, but one episode at the very start of my career stands out vividly. While still a student at the Royal College of Music, I was invited to perform with the London Classical Players under Roger Norrington at the Southbank Centre. The project, called The Beethoven Experience, was my very first professional engagement — and it changed the course of my musical journey.

My first professional engagement was with the London Classical Players under Roger Norrington in a weekend of concerts and seminars at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, called The Beethoven Experience. The centrepiece was Beethoven’s 9th Symphony — performed not on modern orchestral instruments, but using period instruments and practices, aiming to rediscover the sound world Beethoven himself knew. The effect was startling, like an old master painting restored to its original brilliance after centuries of darkening smoke.

Shortly after we began recording at EMI’s Abbey Road Studios. Listening to the playback in the control room was overwhelming: gut-stringed violins without vibrato sounded more expressive than I had ever imagined; woodwind instruments each had their own vivid character; natural horns and trumpets without valves producing beauty and clarity in abundance, and the small calfskin timpani, with their direct focused sound, transformed the rhythmic drive of the music.

For me, a newcomer in a section of six double basses alongside players I admired enormously, it was like stepping from a small car into a Ferrari — the sheer power of the section took my breath away. That sound, preserved on the EMI recording of Beethoven’s 9th, marked the beginning of a 30-year exploration of Baroque,Classical and Romantic repertoire at its most vibrant and alive.

That first encounter remains one of the defining moments of my musical life, shaping not only my career as a performer but also my passion for sharing music through teaching.