I started playing piano when I was three or four. I saw my older sister Lauren playing and thought, “I want to do that too.” I learned through the Suzuki method at first, and had a wonderful, inspiring teacher. But when I moved on to a different teacher, I lost some interest. I marched up to the school music teacher and said, “I want to play something else.” All of a sudden, a French horn was placed in my hand.

Joel Carnegie. Photo supplied

I’ve continued to play piano and sing ever since, but it was the horn that carried me through university. I studied at the University of Melbourne (Bachelor of Music, Honours) and went to Austria to work with Hector McDonald, then Principal Horn with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. He told me that to play at that level, I’d need to completely rebuild my technique – but at the time, I didn’t have the headspace.

I came back to Australia, looking for my next path, and found radio, spending the next few years roaming the world and creating audio stories and podcasts for Audible, the ABC, American Public Media, BBC World Service, CBC, Deutsche Welle...