Sir Simon Rattle is in his element on Hope Street.
The great classical conductor's career has taken him all over the world. For almost two decades he was at the helm of the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, he spent 16 years as the principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic and he was music director of London's Symphony Orchestra for six years, before he returned to Germany for his current post at Munich's Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.
However, it is at Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall where he feels most at home. As he walks into the hall for a photoshoot with the ECHO, he is stopped by almost everybody, meeting old friends, colleagues and admirers.
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Sir Simon is back in the city as, on Sunday, he will conduct the Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and hundreds of past Merseyside Youth Orchestra players in a special concert. Having started his journey at the Merseyside Youth Orchestra, this homecoming is particularly special.
Born in Liverpool in 1955, Sir Simon was raised in a musical home around Menlove Avenue. His dad had been a jazz musician and his mum ran a record shop, but it was at the Philharmonic where his passion blossomed as a young boy. He is delighted to be back where it all started.
Over a coffee on Hope Street, Sir Simon told ECHO: "It's a cliché but you feel like you've never left. Particularly in this area, it feels like being a teenager.
"Some areas of the city I come to now and I realise how much has changed but the older areas are the same. I can remember the Catholic Cathedral going up.
"It's heaven. I don't have family here anymore, so I'm not here that often."
The last time the maestro was in the city was to follow his other great passion - Liverpool FC. Conscious of the lack of time left before Jurgen Klopp says his Anfield farewell, he had hoped this weekend's concert would coincide with another trip to the match, but the Reds' trip to Wembley for the Carabao Cup final meant fixtures were rearranged.
"The last time I was here was last year, because I came up with my kids to watch a Liverpool match at Anfield", he said. They, like me, are Liverpool supporters and we'd only seen them playing away. I wanted them to have that experience.
"They were in complete heaven, of course, aren't we all? The sheer noise.
"We've been to a lot of football matches but there are very few places that are as enclosed as Anfield. It's deafening."
Like any Scouser with an interest in music, the Philharmonic looms large for Sir Simon. The Merseyside Youth Orchestra (now the Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Orchestra) was the catalyst which set him on his way to his Royal Academy education and subsequent stardom.
He said: "There was a lot of music in the house growing up. My father had a professional jazz band at university, my mum used to run a record shop.
"There was a lot of music around but one of the really important things was coming to an early concert at the Merseyside Youth Orchestra when I must have been about eight.
"I remember looking at the percussion at the back and thinking 'oh yes, that's what I want to do'. It's interesting what can flick the switch."
Ensuring that switch can be flicked for as many people as possible is a running theme of our interview. Providing access to the arts for all is one of Sir Simon's great passions, a topic he has been incredibly vocal about throughout his career.
He said: "When I grew up was a time when schools were really starting to do that (promote music) and there was more and more music in the schools in the years afterwards. Now, of course, it has fallen back again.
"We have to really look after that. At that time, there was a feeling that this (playing music) wasn't something you made a lot of noise about because it picked you out as being a little bit strange and different.
"At least when we came to the orchestra, it was all people who realised we all have the same virus (a love of music), that same incurable virus.
"It's extraordinary. We all grew up here, so many of my friends were in the orchestra. Often musicians tend to be strange ducks anyway. A lot of my best friends were here rather than in school."
Founded in 1951, the Merseyside Youth Orchestra was among the first of its kind and it has produced hordes of professional musicians. Sunday's concert will celebrate its 73 years, playing music by Mozart, Elgar, Bernstein and Shostakovich. Sir Simon is looking forward to reuniting with old friends on the stage.
He said: "I look at the programme for Sunday and there are so many names I recognise - so many players who went on to make big careers in British orchestras. And there are also names that I realise must be the children of the people that I played with. It will be a very family thing.
"We're about to celebrate the 75th year of this orchestra. We can all remember how lucky we were because we were at the start of the youth orchestra movement.
"It was pioneering what happened here and it changed all of our lives. We just want it to carry on doing that for people."
Wishing that everyone has the chance to fall in love with classical music in the way he did, Sir Simon despairs at the news coming from Birmingham, where was music director at the city's symphony orchestra from 1980 to 1998. Birmingham City Council's dire financial situation means it has to make £300m worth of cuts over the next two years. As part of those cuts, grants made to regularly funded arts organisations will be slashed by 50% this year and by 100% in the next financial year.
About this, Sir Simon said: "The orchestra in Birmingham has been supported by the city for well over a century and the idea that's gone is devastating.
"Arts are the easiest first thing to cut. We all have sympathies with local government because they're basically bankrupt.
"They have been starved and that is a political choice as much as anything else. This is not their choice and I'm sure it's exactly what Birmingham did not want to do.
"I have the memory of both sides of the political divide in Birmingham coming to speak to me to say 'we'll fight like cats and dogs on everything, but you won't get a hair between us on building Symphony Hall, we're going to make it happen, whoever is in power'.
"Now, you think this sounds like science fiction. But these are all choices, there are always good excuses to cut the arts, that's why we're so terribly irritating shouting about it. We want to protect it for the next generation."
Sir Simon worries that Britain has allowed certain branches of the arts to be perceived as elitist, meaning many people never have the chance to pick up the passion. It is not a problem which he has encountered while working and living in Germany, however.
He explained: "The wonderful thing in the centre of Europe is that nobody says, for instance, that classical music is elitist. This particular poison hasn't reached there.
"So, I spent all my years in the Berlin Philharmonic seeing Angela Merkel going to a football match in the afternoon and then a concert in the evening and loving both equally and knowing about both equally - this is not a problem.
"In the UK, it's interesting that we have somehow allowed this to have become a theme. Apparently this isn't for 'people like you', but of course it is. We're 'people like you' and it's for everybody.
"I think you just have to keep on putting it out there so that people remember it. You need people to have the first contact.
"It's not for everybody, but what is? Not everybody supports Liverpool, some people support Everton.
"This music is not esoteric. It can change people's lives and that's something that the youth orchestra is about.
"We want that orchestra to carry on having the effect on young people that it had on all of us. All good music is good music, whatever style it happens to be in. This place is a melting pot for all types of music."
As such, Sir Simon believes the Philharmonic continues to play a vital role in Liverpool. He cannot wait to return to the stage.
"The Phil is not an add-on - it's part of the heart of Liverpool and you feel that. You feel that everybody knows it, even the people who don't go.
"They put on such a huge variety of music so it has a wide reach. It's part of the beating heart of the city.
"There's a reason that it's an iconic place. These places change cities, that's a great thing and it still looks fantastic.
"Getting on this stage takes me back to being 11 again. I cherish that.
"The venue where you first got the experience - all of my early unforgettable musical experiences were in there and that is always the foundation of everything you do. We just have to make sure that everybody else who needs it gets that opportunity."
Sir Simon Rattle will conduct a special reunion concert for former members of the Merseyside Youth Orchestra and Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Orchestra on Sunday.
