Have you ever doubted that you want to be a concert violinist?

What I’m doing now is my dream: traveling the world, being a guest artist with all these orchestras, having  a billion concerts, recordings and  that. But you have no idea how many people have the same dream. There’s just not enough room on the stage to have that many. When I was studying at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and not winning competitions, I thought about being a concertmaster and other things, but I never once doubted that I would be a musician.

When did you start playing?

I was four years old. I did the Suzuki Method in Brisbane, where I grew up. And it was very nice. I remember my favourite part was having the group lessons every week because there was a little break in between and there’d be cordial and biscuits. That was what I would look forward to.

There’s a stereotype of Asian parents pushing their children to practise. Were your folks like that?

Oh, not at all. My parents aren’t musicians, so they really just stayed out of the way. Of course, no kid wants to practise, so my mum’s way of getting me to practise...