I think all children have a natural inclination towards creativity, and I benefitted strongly from this being fostered and encouraged by my parents. Some of my earliest memories are of dancing and singing to music, banging on toy instruments and drawing fantastical scenes. I strongly remember in kindergarten, I was feeling absolutely furious about something, and I released my frustrations onto a piece of paper - scribbling violently in various shades of red and black crayon. But I had not understood that this was going to be laminated and gifted to our parents as a placemat! The scribbles still hang on my mum’s fridge - my first piece of abstract expressionism!

I’m biased of course, but Labyrinth has been my favourite. From writing the libretto and working with our incredible performers and creatives to bring it to life, while also getting to perform in it myself - it was all very thrilling. It was also very gratifying that the work seemed to resonate with the public at Midsumma last year, enjoying a completely sold out run.

I sometimes work as a hand model. 

That’s such a huge question. I can narrow it down to three. The first that comes to mind is Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, which brings together such evocative creativity across centuries and continents. Mahler’s unbelievable symphonic writing and expressive vocals combine beautifully with the penetrating and deft Tang Dynasty poetry of Li Bai, Wang Wei and others. As someone with Chinese and European ancestry, I find this work especially resonant. Perhaps this is cheating, because so many works of art are collaged into this master work!

As a teenager, I was lucky enough to visit Paris. I had been rather nonplussed by visual art, but visits to the Musee d’Orsay and the Louvre changed all that forever. In particular, the sculpture Psyche Revived by Antonio Canova was a deep awakening in so many ways! 

Thirdly, the poem Flatline by Margaret Atwood is a work of perfectly distilled sadness and beauty. It unfolds the music of language, and twists expectation with breathtaking skill, leaving you spent in barely two pages of text.

The Shabby Peasant aria from Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District, by Shostakovich. Dramatically, it’s great fun - a drinking song, that wends into bitterness, then concludes with the discovery of a body in a cellar. I’d bring it to every audition if I could, but I would probably make an enemy of every pianist in the country, because of its complexity!