All the children play. We have a little trio, a piano, a violin and a cello. The youngest boy has got a guitar now, and does imitations of Chris Martin from Coldplay. The other two now have iPods they bought with their savings. That’s opened up a whole new world to me – listening to the Arctic Monkeys! One of my sons had just bought their album and he put three songs on his iPod and said, ‘Dad, listen to this.’ I thought, yeah, well this is really good stuff! And that’s kind of fun for me at 52, reconnecting to pop music, which I wasn’t that connected to as a teenager. And to see my own teenagers become really driven by this music.

I love to cook. When I’m home I cook for the family – perhaps because I’m not with them enough! When you travel as much as I do, family is definitely the focus when you’re home.

I’ve always been an American sports fan, and then my sons became huge English sports fans while at school in London. I guess they’ve inherited that. They can tell you everything about Arsenal and Chelsea and all the English football clubs. I’ve always been a spectator rather than a player. But the boys fancy themselves as being quite good at soccer, and having been five years in England helps! They’ve picked up the skills, and now they can dazzle their peers.

I’m not a big reader of fiction. I read a lot of non-fiction, mainly about the world today, and more and more about the musicians I’ve devoted my life to studying – finally getting round to reading really serious biographies on Brahms, Schumann, Mozart, Stravinsky. My teacher never told me to do that. As a student I didn’t like history, but the study of history has become important to me, both in my understanding of music and my understanding of the contemporary world.