Simon J Powell is a violinist, photographer, educator and bicycle traveller from London, England. Classically trained from a young age, at 17 he began pursuing other interests and laid down his fiddle. When he picked it up again a decade later, he found himself freed from the constraints of written music and increasingly able to play by ear, mimic diverse styles and improvise. Now Simon travels the world on his bicycle, educating children and playing music to entertain and bring joy to those he meets on the road. It has become a powerful means to communicate across language barriers and make friends from wildly diverse cultural backgrounds. Most recently, Simon has developed a nascent interest in the Zen school of Buddhism, and rather than playing merely to express his immediate emotional state of mind, he has begun experimenting with his instrument as a meditational tool - a medium through which he can detach himself from the external world and turn the focus inwards on his deeper self. On the saddle or with his fiddle in hand, as in life as a whole, he believes in the primacy of journey over destination…or rather that “the journey is the destination”. Having cycled 7000km across South East Asia in 2013, and along the length of the Korean west and south coasts this year, next summer Simon plans to strap his fiddle to his bicycle once again and continue on his personal journey, this time rolling across the European continent from Turkey to London. Where does he see his violin playing in the future? “I hope to always remain a beginner, for in a beginner’s mind there there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few”.