I grew up in a family where music was everywhere. My mother was the youngest of five or six siblings, and everybody played a musical instrument. I remember my aunts played a lot of Schumann, and in my grandparents’ three-storey walk-up flat in Double Bay, someone was always playing the violin, cello or piano.

Kathryn Greiner. Photo supplied

We lived a peripatetic life. I was born in Sydney and spent time in London in the early Fifties, followed by six years in Washington, DC, before returning to Australia as a teenager.

The 1950s and 1960s were revolutionary for music. I was part of the rock-and-roll generation and a quintessential bobby-soxer in white loafers. When we watched The Ed Sullivan Show, my father would often ask, “Is that any good?” to which I’d confidently reply, “Of course it is, Dad. That’s Elvis Presley!”

My parents loved classical music and often went to New York, attending concerts at Carnegie Hall, and they got to see incredible musicians like cellist Pablo Casals when he played at the National Theater in Washington, DC.

My father found listening to music very relaxing, and...