A school story

Thank you for sharing that charming story :-)

I wonder if other members have similar accounts of early encounters with music which left a lasting effect on them?

My own school was a musical wasteland, so I didn't have any eventful musical awakenings there*.

If I had a school-years moment which 'turned me on' to classical music... we had a next-door neighbour who was a memberships secretary for the Bach Choir. I think she had given me up as a lost cause, but one day she had a spare ticket for an Albert Hall recital by Shura Cherkassky. I don't think I'd ever been to a professional piano recital before (not counting my piano-teacher's bumbling attempts). Cherkassky was already getting on in years by then, but it was an astounding concert, which inspired me to save my pocket-money for more concert tickets of my own. One of these was a Dufay concert by the Early Music Consort of London (David Munrow), and from there, there was no looking back :)

[Although being made to belt-out the top lines of Handel choruses during class music lessons instilled a firm dislike for English oratorios which has lasted my whole life through. I was only decades later that I began to enjoy Handel's operas... but the oratorios remain embedded in a world of school bells and carbolic soap which I've not been able to dislodge]