When Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chief Conductor Jaime Martín was a kid, living in a cramped apartment in the northern Spanish city of Santander with his parents and five siblings, he devised a card game just for himself. 

At the time, he recalls, Spain was just beginning to emerge from decades under the fascist-nationalist dictatorship of Francisco Franco, who died in 1975. “Music and the arts were not the priority,” he says. “Back then, it was all football, football, football. But I was lucky; my father, though he worked in a very humble office, he loved music and culture.”

Jaime Martín. Photo © Samantha Meuleman

Inspired by his dad’s record collection, the young Martín made up a game with a deck of playing cards. “On one set of cards, I would write the name of a conductor – Abbado, von Karajan, people like that – and on others I would write the names of orchestras – the Berlin Philharmonic, the Spanish Radio Symphony Orchestra, whatever,” he explains.

“Then I would mix up the cards and...