I’ve been an avid gardener for my entire life… even longer than I’ve been a musician! After a week of performances with the MSO I love to get dirty in my garden at home in Mount Macedon. My love of gardening and music often come together with the help of some heavy duty headphones! I can really tune out to the rest of the world when I’m planting rare woodland plants like Meconopsis, Eythronium and Galanthus or when I’m digging up the root vegetable crop for the next load of seeds to go in.

I tend to listen to a lot of early music played on period instruments, the earthy quality of these instruments lends itself perfectly to gardening. When I’m handling tiny seeds or bulbs I need something calming which suits the works by Riccio, Vivaldi, Mozart and Tessier. For pruning, shoveling or weeding something a little more vigorous like the Bach or Ravel is perfect. For mowing or brush cutting I need to bring out the big guns – Mahler, Stravinsky or Holst.

And just so everyone doesn’t think I’m the biggest nerd ever, I’ve included some Scissor Sisters and Basement Jaxx because they’re great songs no matter the activity!

There are some great pieces of work coming up this year but two of my top picks are definitely Holst’s The Planets and Stravinsky’s Firebird. Book tickets below!