My mother is not a musician but she loves classical music, so when I was growing up in Tokyo she would tune the radio to NHK Classic FM. Every morning in our tiny ‘danchi’ apartment, I was woken by the theme tune, Pachelbel’s Canon, passing through the bamboo paper doors.

My father was Principal Viola in the NHK Symphony Orchestra, but first trained as a court musician at the Imperial Palace as a Gagaku flautist and dancer. Gagaku music is taught privately and there are no written scores; the repertoire has to be memorised. All trainees also learned a European instrument, so my father had violin lessons and later took up viola to join a string quartet.

Noriko Shimada at Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s George Gershwin’s An American in Paris concert in 2024. Photo © Ken Leanfore

When he wasn’t out performing and touring, he’d practise for hours at home, patiently playing the same phrases over and over until he was satisfied. It’s a sound that has stayed with me. Every December, we’d go to hear the NHK Symphony Orchestra playing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. I used to fall asleep at the beginning and wake at the...