People often talk about finding their true calling. For Guy Simpson, it felt like the other way round. “My calling found me in a way,” he says.

Simpson is now one of Australia’s most highly regarded musical directors, but it took a few byways and false starts before he hit his straps.

Born in the North of England, he didn’t come from a musical background; his father was a builder, and his mother was a stay-at-home mum.

Guy Simpson. Photo © Keith Saunders

“The lady next door to my granny’s house had a piano and legend has it – and I half remember this – I used to go round to her house and pick out the tunes I’d heard on the radio and play by ear,” recalls Simpson.

“Someone said, ‘Maybe he should have some lessons,’ so I [started at age nine] and it was the classic duck to water; I just loved it so much.”

Arriving in Australia with his family when he was 12, Simpson went to Cronulla High School in Sydney’s south, which he describes as “sporty and surfy” with no music program....