I'm often asked whether orchestras around the world vary from one to another. My reply, like most people's answers to interesting questions, is yes and no.

As individuals, from whatever country or culture, the musical differences between players are negligible. Given how much time musicians spend practising over and over again the same music from the same region from the same period of time this is not particularly surprising. The vast majority of orchestral music was written in a span of roughly two hundred years within a geographical area not much more than a third of the size of Europe. It is inevitable that the musical personalities that this attracts and influences develop huge similarities.

The classical music world is a much smaller place than it used to be. Recordings, and the ease of hearing them, mean that almost anyone can hear almost anyone else's performance. Young people can travel to study abroad without much trouble and today's abundance of international youth orchestras allows for a far greater exchange of ideas at a crucial stage in a musician's development than ever used to be the case. Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing is a matter for debate but the reality is that orchestras and musicians sound a lot more alike than they used to.

But, put a hundred players into an orchestra and as a group their national characteristics reveal themselves with all the obvious differences of that particular country's identity. With apologies for stereotypical generalisations, it is hard for me not to be aware of the work ethic of the Japanese orchestras, the style of the Italians, the passion of the Hungarians, the discipline of the Americans, the sophistication of the Swedes, the teamwork of the Dutch, the freedom of the South Americans, the cultural confidence of the Germans, the 'no-worries' Australians, and the English…well being English myself I couldn't possibly comment.

How much I need to adjust what I do in order to connect with each orchestra is another two-fold answer. As a musician, not really at all. I believe there is a right sound and style for each composer and try to broadly re-create that wherever I go. But the means of achieving this varies hugely from country to country. One nation's joke is another's awkward moment. Ending a rehearsal too soon in one place is as bad as using every minute of it in another. Whereas you might need to draw more expression out of discipline in one city, you could find yourself having to encourage more focus within the passion of another.

A musical score is a passport to a foreign adventure and I feel fortunate to be able to experience so many different ways of achieving an essentially similar goal. It seems there is no right way to make music. It is an international language that no one can claim as their own and which everybody speaks with their own accent. There is something wonderfully healthy about this truly global equality.