Growing up in the Midlands listening to his brother's heavy metal music, all Simon Over wanted was for it to stop.
Unlike many young men, all he heard when heavy metal was played was ''thunderous noise''.
''I'm not snobby about it, it just doesn't touch me. I just struggle with all the sound coming to me at once. I like interesting layers of sound, balance, intricate detail.''
''I'm a bit more tolerant now,'' the classical conductor and musician said.
''I listen to jazz, go to jazz clubs.''
For Over, classical music is it. He started learning the piano when he was 4 years old and the organ when he was 8, wanting to be just like his older brother.
By the time he was 12 he was playing the organ at church and at weddings, and by 16 he was playing the organ at Coventry Cathedral. He spent a year at Wales Cathedral as assistant organist after school and then played in the Amsterdam Baroque style.
''I was always a big guy so I got away with more than my age gave away.''
That music was going to be his career was never in question, he said.
''School was such a big challenge. All I wanted to do was music. The school had to be quite firm.''
Once he got to Oxford and was able to dedicate himself to music, he was in his element. I'm here for three weeks which is really nice as I have time to be here and enjoy Dunedin in a way I haven't been able to do much before.
He then went on to the Royal Academy of Music to study piano and conducting.
''I've been a freelance musician ever since then.''
His love of conducting grew out of his enjoyment of collaborating with other musicians, something that was evident when he was as young as 7, he said.
Hearing a recording of Morning from the Peer Gynt Suite by Grieg at school, he ''begged'' his parents to buy a recording and listened to it all the time.
''I just loved it. I liked pretending I was conducting it.''
To this day he enjoyed bringing together various elements of a performance from soloists, orchestras and the ''fourth wall'', the audience, he said.
''I just like working with musicians, sharing the joy of music. I love the adventure of working towards a concert.''
Among his credits is 10 years working at Westminster Abbey and in the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft in the Palace of Westminster.
His enjoyment of working with other musicians was evident in his founding of the UK Parliament Choir, which brings together politicians and parliamentary staff from all parties.
''It's the most equitable thing in Parliament. Peers, MPs and staff are all singing from the same hymn sheet. You can have a Labour peer next to a Tory MP next to a researcher next to a policeman.''
The choir has a membership of 160 and performs three concerts a year with Over conducting. It has been accompanied by the City of London Sinfonia, La Serenissima, The London Festival Orchestra and Southbank Sinfonia.
It was when discovering the choir's need for an orchestra that he enlisted music graduates from college to help and realised the difficulty such graduates had in finding work.
''They had finished their training and had no job to go to.''
So he created the Southbank Sinfonia for graduates to train in orchestral music. The training orchestra is now in its 13th year.
''It has 33 players from around the world.''
It was through recruiting for the sinfonia that his first links with New Zealand were created, through NZ-UK Links Foundation and Invercargill man Dr Elman Poole, who wanted to support a musician in the South Island with a scholarship.
With the help of the Southern Sinfonia, Over toured the South Island, ending up in Dunedin.
''I fell in love with this place and have been lucky enough to be invited back. This is my sixth year of conducting concerts here.''
This year he was invited back as principal guest conductor at the Sinfonia and was in the midst of three concerts, Elgar's Cello Concerto and the upcoming Clarinet Classics with Michael Collins.
''I'm here for three weeks which is really nice as I have time to be here and enjoy Dunedin in a way I haven't been able to do much before.''
While in the city he was preparing for next season with the Sinfonia which would include the performance of a Creative New Zealand-funded, WW1-themed work by Dunedin composer Anthony Ritchie.
''I like working with him very much. He has such a unique voice. It'll be very exciting to do it here in the Town Hall.''
That work would then travel to the United Kingdom to be performed by Over's sinfonia and he hoped to make it a big New Zealand event.
''The wife of New Zealand's high commissioner sings in the choir. She is going to hold a party to launch it and I might call on all New Zealand musicians to make it a real event.''
He also enjoyed the work of Prof Ritchie's father John and the Sinfonia was performing two of his works in Clarinet Classics.
Working with the Southern Sinfonia was a positive experience as they were such a committed group of people willing to spend long hours rehearsing, he said.
''They're a really interesting group made up of different sorts of people, with different backgrounds, from one who is coming up to her 50th anniversary, to young people at university.''
Cellist Umberto Clerici remarked after a recent concert how good the environment at the Sinfonia was, he said.
''It's that which draws me back each year, that and the beautiful acoustics of the Town Hall.''
He has worked both as conductor and accompanist with many internationally acclaimed artists, including Sir Thomas Allen, Sir James and Lady Galway, Dame Emma Kirkby, Dame Felicity Lott, Sir Willard White, Dame Edna Everage, Alessio Bax, Emma Johnson, Simon Keenlyside, Malcolm Martineau, and Amanda Roocroft.
As a pianist, his performances with American violinist Miriam Kramer at the Wigmore Hall and Lincoln Centre, New York - as well as on several recordings - have received high critical acclaim.
In coming to Dunedin for these concerts, he left behind his family at their villa in a mountaintop village in Tuscany, Italy.
''They made me an honorary citizen a few years ago. It's a really lovely place to be.''
Just before his visit he had run the Anghiari music festival in Tuscany - organising 23 concerts in nine days - finishing just a few days before he was due in Dunedin.
So after a trip including taking a bus to Bologna, flights to London, Hong Kong and then on to Auckland and Dunedin without stopping, he could be forgiven for wondering where he was.
''I went from 40degC to winter, but I love the variety, I love meeting new people.''
