“Every time you come to it, you see something new you’ve never seen before, and that’s what it is for me, the feeling it is never finished, it is always a work in progress.”
Lewis, who left Huyton at 18 to study at London’s Guildhall, teamed up with the RLPO again in the summer for the BBC Proms.
“Even if you do the Proms every year, it is a very special occasion,” he says. “Everyone is really up for it and it has its own specific energy, like no other concert series in the world.”
And he should know. Lewis’s touring schedule takes him all over the planet, to play with the world’s best orchestras.
In 2009, he has dates for the first time with the Chicago Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, as part of a heavy international schedule, but unfortunately he doesn’t have plans to return to Liverpool this year.
“I’m sure everyone needs a break from me,” he laughs.
But he can be caught at the end of this month at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, where he will turn his hand to Mozart with the BBC concert orchestra on January 24.
Tickets from 0161 907 9000 or www.bridgewater-hall.co.uk