When I decided to become a flautist, I had never seen a flute before. I heard Jean‑Pierre Rampal playing Mozart’s Flute and Harp Concerto over my parents’ loudspeakers when I was seven and somehow knew it was my calling.

Ana de la Vega. Photo © Neda Navaee

Each flute player has an individual sound because of the way we use the spaces in our face and mouth to create it, along with the speed and temperature of the air flow. Now that I’m older, I realise it wasn’t the flute; it was the sound of Rampal himself – the joie de vivre, the luminosity, his playfulness, his openness – that had such an impact on me that I’ve been chasing that crisp fresh sound ever since.

I grew up riding horses on a farm in southern New South Wales and was a competitive showjumper. My parents weren’t musicians, but they unknowingly did something quite clever: they said ‘no’ when I asked to play the flute. I begged and begged; I went to the local library and drew pictures of flutes. By the time they rented a flute and gave me one...