You made your Australian debut with the Queensland Symphony in 2011, and
came back the following year. What were your impressions?

It’s starting to become like a family for me. I feel so at home every time I’m there; I love the people, I love the orchestra. The idea of going to Australia was like going to Narnia — the most magical place on the planet or something, and I made a fantastic connection with all the people there.

Speaking of fantastic connections, your mentor growing up was Martha Argerich. What was her most important advice?

She always told me something she tells herself and that is to never imitate yourself. If you play a piece so many times in your life, there is a moment where you’ve played it wonderfully or you’re very happy with yourself, and you want to recreate this very same thing the next time. But the fact that you’re trying to do so will inevitably make it sound like a caricature of yourself, somehow. We need to accept that once it can be wonderful and another time it
can be less wonderful and another time it can be even more so – this is the beauty
of creating something...