When I’m on the road, I like listening to a wide range of music, equal parts classical and non-classical. Particularly when I travel by land and I can watch the world go by, having a soundtrack to the scenery outside can really influence the way I am absorbing my surroundings.

As you might be able to tell by this playlist, I tend to gravitate to more contemplative music… Bon Iver, Radiohead and Sufjan Stevens are some of my favourite artists for indulging this tendency. But I always like to throw in a few upbeat numbers to jolt me out of my rumination – I’m a huge ABBA fan and it always puts a smile on my face. I also love jazz and secretly wish that I was a jazz violinist, like my hero Stefan Grappelli, who totally rocks on this track with Oscar Peterson. Ella Fitzgerald has always featured on my playlists in the past, but I’ve recently discovered Sarah Vaughan… what a delicious voice!

On the classical side of things, I tend to listen to things that I might be performing in the near future, like the Vasks Vox Amoris, which I’ll be playing with the MSO in August and the Widmann Quartet No.3, a wild piece that I’ll be playing with the Australian String Quartet in our upcoming tour.

Then there are the pieces that I can never resist listening to… Schubert Impromptus with Alfred Brendel at the piano, Rachel Podger’s solo Bach (she’s one of my favourite Baroque violinists) and last but not least, Jessye Norman singing the Four Last Songs of Strauss – I like to save her for the most spectacular scenery of all!