Podcast
Private Passions
Hosted by BBC Radio 3 · EN
Guests from all walks of life discuss their musical passions and talk about the influence music has had on their lives.
32episodes
Episodes
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Simon Barnes, journalist
3d ago00:54:46Tap to summarizeThe writer Simon Barnes has two very public passions - sport and the natural world. He wrote about both for The Times for 30 years, covering seven Olympic Games and six World Cup finals, while also delivering columns on short-eared owls, mountain hares and “the organ-pipe contact call of lions." His books include reflections on the meaning and the soul of sport, and numerous titles about birds, including the best-selling How to Be a Bad Birdwatcher, in which he says: ‘Birdwatching is a state of being, not an activity. It is not a matter of organic trainspotting. It is about life and it is about living.’ This way of seeing also informs his most recent book How to Fly – which examines not only birds, but butterflies, bees, bats and the deep human fascination with flight. Simon's musical choices include Beethoven, Scarlatti, Monteverdi and Messiaen.
Transcribe →Margaret Busby, publisher and editor
1w ago00:54:24Tap to summarizeMargaret Busby is a publisher and editor who's helped change our literary landscape. She's been lauded by the writer Zadie Smith as the cheerleader, instigator, organiser, defender and celebrator of black arts, something she's done for nearly 60 years. She started young - she was just 23 years old when she co-founded the publishers Allison and Busby with Clive Allison in 1967. Free from the usual industry rules and with little money or experience, they began with five shilling poetry paperbacks and went on to champion new work as well as established writers from all backgrounds. Margaret's drive to showcase often overlooked or neglected talent led to two groundbreaking anthologies of women writers, Daughters of Africa and New Daughters of Africa. Margaret's music includes Bach and Chevalier de Saint-Georges, along with jazz greats Duke Ellington and Miles Davis. Radio 3 is celebrating the centenary of Miles Davis' birth in the coming week across numerous programmes including Composer of the Week, Round Midnight and The Essay.
Transcribe →Michael Wood, historian
2w ago00:56:25Tap to summarizeThe historian Michael Wood has shared his enthusiasms and expertise with television viewers and readers around the world for almost five decades.He’s brought us complex individuals such as Alexander the Great, pivotal conflicts such as the Trojan War, and national histories, including the Story of India, the Story of China and a people’s history of Britain.And here on Radio 3, he’s one of the distinguished historians joining Gillian Moore for Key Changes, a year-long series charting one thousand years of musical history, on air on Saturdays and on BBC Sounds.Michael's musical choices include Monteverdi, Bach, Messiaen and Chopin.
Transcribe →James Aldred, cameraman and writer
May 300:54:04Tap to summarizeJames Aldred is an Emmy award-winning documentary wildlife cameraman and filmmaker who has collaborated with David Attenborough on projects such Planet Earth, The Life of Mammals and Our Planet. He often finds himself suspended from ropes or on platforms high up in the rainforest canopy, capturing shots of rarely-seen animals and birds, including orangutans, gibbons and eagles.He recalled some of his treetop adventures - and the many dangers he’s faced - in his first book, The Man Who Climbs Trees. His second, Goshawk Summer, detailed his experience of filming a family of goshawks in the New Forest during lockdown. It went on to win the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing. His most recent book, A Wagon in the Woods, returns to the New Forest and is about his painstaking restoration of an old horse-drawn wagon he once played in as a child. James picks music by Borodin, Wagner, Mahler, Bach and John Barry.
Transcribe →Professor Dame Ijeoma Uchegbu, chemist
Apr 2600:51:57Tap to summarizeProfessor Dame Ijeoma Uchegbu has dedicated her career to studying nanoparticles, finding ways to carry medicines to parts of the body that are notoriously hard to reach, such as the back of the eye and the brain, while causing fewer side-effects.She’s Professor of Pharmaceutical Nanoscience at University College London, President of Wolfson College Cambridge and was appointed a DBE in the King’s New Years Honours List last year.She’s also written a book called Chain Reaction: the Wondrous Chemistry of Everyday Life, in which she blends explanations of the science that surrounds us with moments of personal memoir. Ijeoma's music list includes Mozart, Vivaldi, Bach and Johann Strauss.Presenter Michael Berkeley Producer Clare Walker
Transcribe →Dietmar Mueller-Elmau, entrepreneur
Apr 1900:50:51Tap to summarizeDietmar Mueller-Elmau is the owner of Schloss Elmau, a resort hotel in the Bavarian Alps, 60 miles from Munich. It was set up in 1916 by his grandfather, the philosopher and writer Johannes Müller. He wanted people to take “a holiday from the ego” and to enjoy classical concerts.Over the decades, it hosted performances by the likes of Benjamin Britten, Yehudi Menuhin and Alfred Brendel. Dietmar continues that tradition, with musicians such as Yuja Wang and the Kanneh-Masons, along with jazz concerts, events with writers and philosophers, and the G7 leaders conference – twice. Dietmar's music choices include Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Liszt and Chopin.
Transcribe →Rachel Eliza Griffiths, poet and novelist
Apr 1200:52:30Tap to summarizeThe American writer Rachel Eliza Griffiths creates poetry that resonates with music: she writes about her mother cleaning the house while ‘Pavarotti trembled across the terse sunlight of every room.’As well as poetry, she’s written a novel, and her most recent book is a memoir called The Flower Bearers. It deals with loss, including the sudden death of her closest friend. She received the news on what should have been the happiest of days – her marriage to the writer Salman Rushdie. And less than a year later, she found herself beside his hospital bed after the knife attack which nearly claimed his life.But this is no misery memoir – there is the joy of finding her voice as a young poet in New York in the 90s, the strength she gains from the writers who have paved the way, and the music that travels with her.Eliza's music choices include music by Schumann, Bach, Puccini and Nina Simone.
Transcribe →Francis Spufford, writer
Apr 500:53:02Tap to summarizeFrancis Spufford is an award-winning writer who loves to inhabit different worlds and vividly bring them to life: Golden Hill, which won the Costa First Novel Award, takes place in Manhattan in 1746, Light Perpetual begins in a Woolworths in South London in 1944 and Francis’s latest novel ‘Nonesuch’ is a historical fantasy set during the Blitz. But it wasn’t until he was 52 that Francis felt confident enough to write works of fiction, before that his books covered a wide variety of topics from polar expeditions to the economic optimism of post-Stalin Russia to an exploration of the role religion has played in his life. He became an atheist in his teens but turned back to the church after a 20 year hiatus.When not penning his own work, Francis encourages other budding authors as Professor of Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London.His music choices include works by Byrd, Satie, Mozart and Ravel.
Transcribe →Sir Ian Blatchford, Science Museum director
Mar 2200:52:12Tap to summarizeSir Ian Blatchford has been the Director of the Science Museum in London for more than 15 years – the longest serving director in its history. He also oversees the National Railway Museum in York, the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, Locomotion in County Durham, and the Science and Innovation Park in Wiltshire - all enjoyed by more than four million visitors last year. He was the first in his family to go to university and his early career was in banking, but his passion was for culture. He combined the two as Finance Director at the V+A, before crossing the road to lead the Science Museum. It’s currently a very challenging time for anyone running a museum, with hard questions about funding, sponsorship and exhibition content. His musical choices include Elgar, Monteverdi, Wagner and Sarah Vaughan.Producer: Katy Hickman
Transcribe →George Saunders, writer
Mar 1500:51:14Tap to summarizeThe American writer George Saunders won the 2017 Booker Prize with his first novel, Lincoln in the Bardo. It’s a moving exploration of the grief of President Lincoln as he mourns his 11-year-old son Willie – and it’s voiced by the weird and wonderful spirits trapped in the cemetery. George was 58 when the novel was published. In the decades before that, he won renown and awards as a master of the short story. He’s also won legions of followers for his close analysis of the form.Most recently he’s published a second novel, Vigil, in which spirits return – this time to the deathbed of an oil tycoon. His musical choices include John Adams, William Grant Still, Caroline Shaw and Dvorak.Producer: Katy Hickman
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