Simon was born in Okinawa, Japan, and moved to the UK at the age of 6, where he first began playing the cello. He studied with Alexander Boyarsky at the Purcell School and the Royal College of Music in London, where he graduated with First Class Honours, and was a prize winner at the Antonio Janigro International Cello Competition in Croatia.

Shortly before graduating, he was invited to take part in the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra in Switzerland, where he played the cello solo part of Arnold Schoenberg's "Pierrot Lunaire" under the direction of Pierre Boulez. This experience subsequently lead to his new found love for ensemble music playing, big and small, and has involved himself in as many chamber and orchestral music as possible, such as the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Mahler Chamber Academy and coming back to play at the Lucerne Festival in four separate seasons.

Around the same time, he had heard a recital of one of Mstislav Rostropovich's last students, Ivan Monighetti, and decided to move and study with him at the Basel Hochschule für Musik in Switzerland, where he completed his Master’s Degree.

After graduation, he played in orchestras such as the Sinfonieorchester Basel, the London Symphony Orchestra, Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, and a season with the Hessisches Staatsorchester as a Second Principal Cellist, where he played with the world's leading conductors and soloists, and many more.