When I first heard the Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto album. That was the start of my love for Brazilian Bossa.
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I think mine came late. As a teenager I had straightforward tastes and listened to much the same stuff over and over again. I listened to what was current and, to be honest, what my mates were playing. In my mid twenties that changed.
I somehow picked up on Peter Gabrielsâs RealWorld label. Specifically Nusrat Fateh Ali Khanâs albums âMusst Musstâ and âNight Songâ just knocked me out. An artist who was totally alien, singing in a way I had never heard and a language I did not understand yet utterly transporting. I also bought lots of African music too from Real World and Sternâs Africa. The finest of these probably Remmy Ongala âSongs For The Poor Manâ.
Although I actually donât listen to or buy much âWorld Musicâ now, these and others made me a musical explorer and music became a hobby not just incidental. They made me curious and prepared to develop my own tastes apart from the fashions of the day. I still try to find new artists and new genres if I can.
Bruce
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Listening to the Grateful Deadâs Anthem Of The Sun on stereo headphones when it came out in 1968 - been a Deadhead ever since.
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Hello Bruce, I enjoyed reading your words, and Iâm with you there. Nusrat was the start of a new direction for me too. If you have not come across these, (you probably have) give them a spin : Trilok Gurtu, Ali Farka TourĂ©, Anouar Brahem,
It was seeing Shanker and John McLaughlin performing with the Mahavishnu Orchestra in an open air Alternative Music festival that sparked my interest. However, the event that really turned my head toward âworld musicâ was Jan Garbarek, L.Shanker, Zakir Hussain and T.Gurtu in the mid 1980s As a result, I am a great follower of the ECM label, thanks to that path. And like you, the journey continues, particularly as music streaming is such a wonderful facilitator for new directions.
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Thanks. Two new names for me there!
Bruce
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You are welcome. happy listening
I have had two âmusical epiphaniesâ along the lines of the OP. The first was 50 years ago, as described below and still vivid in my memory. The second Iâll recount in a subsequent post.
Deep Purple at the Roundhouse, Chalk Farm, London. I thought from memory it was 1970, but searching gig lists the best fit would seem to be 30th April 1971*.
Suggested by a school friend who had been to gigs before, I was the tender age of 16. The gig was memorable for oh so many reasons!
Primarily memorable of course simply because it was first live gig I went to. Wow! WOW!! WOW!!! The sound. The sound level. The atmosphere. This is how rock music should sound! (note to self for hifi). Discovering headbanging. The interesting smelling smoke(!). The projector lightshow (yes, those oil bubble lights).Of the performance I particularly remember Wring that neck, a number I knew from the album recording, introduced as one where they all did solos.
I already liked rock, but this was ROCK!!! And it hooked me on live music - and I couldnât wait for more. Epiphany - absolutely!
No memory of support band.
The tickets said no cameras. I decided to sneak one in, so made myself a belt bag to house my folding Zeis Ikon rollfilm bellows camera and risk it. Glad I did! I loaded the camera with Kodak Royal-X 1250ASA B&W film (colour was expensive in those days). Just 12 shots - yielding one good one. Processed in my schoolâs darkroom and enlarged enough to get the small image to fill a postcard size print I had this wonderful grainy moody shot of Ritchie, playing what may have been a Gibson (I didnât know much about guitars, but it wasnât a Strat as he played every other time I saw them). Very sadly I lost it in the midst of time.
*If that date I found was correct, it was only 2 weeks later I saw Pink Floyd playing Atom Heart Mother at the Crystal Palace Garden Party, supported by Mountain and the Faces - but I wouldnât have expected to have been able to become aware and get tickets in that short time, so I do wonder if there was an earlier Roundhouse gig missed in the gig list I checked. It was the time of In Rock, and before the Fireball tour, to which I also went.
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Donât know about an âepiphanyâ but I clearly remember first hearing Sibelius as a teenager.
Transportative. First time music took me to another place.
Sibeliusâ music has run like a silver thread throughout my life ever since.
Listening to him right now in fact.
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Only one of them would have been an epiphanyâŠ
Great story about that Deep Purple gig and shame you have lost your pictures. I went for a coffee in The Roundhouse Cafe a few months ago. Though full of people, there was little atmosphere, as most seemed consumed by smartphones and tablets. But the walls rocked with the echoes of all that has happened in the past. You must be one of those that left that energy there 
I never got to the round house in those âHeadyâ days, I lived in East Yorkshire, but you reminded me of trip with my mates to see The Grateful Dead at Ally Pally - late 1974 I think. As far as not remembering exact dates, I am sure we all forgive you. I, like many people at that time, saw a lot of live music, it was relatively affordable and remember spending a whole summer doing festivals in the early 70âs. But I cannot for the life of me remember what year it was?
Mustâve been a heady year then! 
Iâd love to have seen the DeadâŠI wonder why I didnât goâŠfoolish boyâŠ
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I take it that weâre allowed more than one musical epiphany, so a quick cut and paste from an earlier contribution on another thread:
It was late '70s, and I was working in London.
Muddy Waters and his band were in town for a concert at, (I think), The Rainbow, and the day before they were due to appear, word went round that they were doing a warmup rehearsal gig at Dingwalls in Camden.
Hotfoot across London, and, sure enough, there they were, onstage, and doing the equivalent of a Chicago blues club set ⊠truly memorable! 
Edit:
Managed to find this on a music memorabilia site, and it now hangs on the music room wall ⊠ah, memories!
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So many bands to see then. No one could have seen em all
In my first post I said I had two. Here is the second one - very different yet in some ways the sameâŠ
I have always liked classical music - I was brought up on it, and it predated my love of rock. But I never liked opera. My parents sometimes listened on the radio, but I couldnât stand it: just unpleasant noise, even though the music could be good, but spoilt by the strident sopranos and tenors wailing in foreign languagesâŠ
Roll on a while⊠And context is relevant: I love live theatre, and I really like the music of Bizetâs Carmen. So, some time in the early to mid 1990s, living in Cardiff, the home of Welsh National Opera, my wife and I saw that there was a performance of Carmen at the local theatre, where we were regular patrons, and decided to give it a try.
Well, it wasnât a disaster: I didnât hate it, it wasnât unpleasant, but it did nothing for me. Oh well, opera wasnât for me.
Now, I donât know what prompted it. Maybe because WNO was so prominent in Cardiff. Maybe because we felt masochistic. Who knows? But maybe 5 years or so late we decided to have one more go at opera - give it one last chance. So we went to see Pucciniâs Turandot.
Wow! WOW!! WOW!!! The combination of dramatic orchestral music, live theatre, the power of the human voice, and tragic story. Raw emotion conveyed through sight and sound, and with intensity. What intensity!! I donât think there was a dry eye in tne theatre - and my eyes were unashamedly pouring. The first time I had cried in public since I was a young kid. I was hooked, absolutely: hook, line, sinker ⊠rod and boat as well!!
In the several years that followed living there we saw more tragic operas, Puccini and Verdi, and the experience multiplied, though Turandot as my first love will be the best forever.
I now can buy and appreciate opera at home, though quickest to assimilate were the ones I had experienced live. No, not can buy, But have bought and do buy, and play often, and love. A complete convert, a real epiphany.
However, I much prefer full operas and donât listen just to exempts or individual arias, although where they are ones I know in the context of the opera I can appreciate them - an example, perhaps, is Nessun Dorma, which when Pavarottiâs version strangely hit the UK pop charts in 1970 was just ârubbish operaâ to me, but since getting hooked, when I hear it now my memory transports me into the music and story and brings a tear to my eye.
So, then I went to see a comic opera (Barber of Seville), but was disappointed - I didnât dislike it, but it didnât trigger any emotion. However there was another difference, not just comedy vs tragedy, namely that it was sung in English, whereas the other ones weâd seen had been in original language, with surtitles. And the trouble is, without surtitles it is a strain to follow the words, and I think it was that that inhibited the flow, so my preference is firmly original language with surtitles - or even just a synopsis, not translated into English.
I cannot get enough of live opera - but it is limited by availability and cost. One thing I love about holidaying in some other European countries, especially Italy, is how easy and inexpensive it is to get to see live opera - really puts Britain to shame, where opera is very expensive and productions few. A small production need not mean any less well done or involving than a lavish one: I had a wonderful experience the first time I discovered these some years ago in Venice: a low budget production in what in UK could have been a village hall, flat floor with ordinary chairs, small stage, small orchestra âŠbut the same big emotion. Done many times since in various places!
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Yes, it was a wonderful time for music - and a wonderful time to be discovering and experiencing it.
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Iâm always having revealing moments }
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Funny that, it was Turandot - a late night TV broadcast from an open air theatre in Italy I think - that turned my head about listening to opera (long before Nessun Dorma was played everywhere).
Absolutely stunningâŠ
Been a sucker for Puccini ever since. Still canât quite get enthused about Wagnerâs voices yet. The musicâs fine but the singingâŠall that Germanic droning on!
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Puccini and Verdi my joint favourites, though Puccini is better at really dramatic music.
One Iâd like to see live is Delibesâ LakmĂ©, but have yet to find a performance so not yet had the full experience
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Recommend me a Wagner, @Innocent_Bystander âŠto see if I can âgetâ the singing. Iâve tended to listen only to the overtures. Have a boxset of Klemperer (iirc) doing them. Good stuff.
But the singing still defeats me, on the whole.
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Sorry, I havenât been inspired to try Wagner yet - perhaps someone else can (for both of us)? Or maybe need to go to the opera threadâŠ
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