I’ve played plucked instruments since I was a kid. When I was a baby, I had a ukulele; a guitar when I was about six; and a lute when I was nine.

My dad [Jonathan Dunford] is from New York, and he was obsessed with the viola da gamba. He met my mum [Sylvia Abramowicz], who is also a viol player, at Jordi Savall’s class in Switzerland, so I grew up surrounded by Baroque music.

One morning, I was at a workshop with them. They said, “You look bored,” and my mum added, “Why don’t you take a lute lesson with Claire Antonini?”

At the time, I was playing the guitar, which I loved, but the lute had this magical, sparkly sound. I learned a little melody – thumb, index, thumb, index – and at 12 o’clock that same day I gave my first concert on the lute with a bunch of students from the workshop.

I kept on playing the instrument, so I had martial arts, astronomy, video games and the lute – that was my childhood.

I studied classical technique with Claire, Hopkinson Smith and Paul O’Dette, but I also learned a lot from...