Over the last 40 years, Mark Morris has established a reputation as the most musical of choreographers. Inspired by both baroque and twentieth-century music, he’s most famously choreographed Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” – he danced both Dido and the sorceress himself - and his witty version of The Nutcracker, “The Hard Nut”, has been so popular that it’s been staged every year for almost 30 years. Mark Morris has worked in opera too, directing and choreographing productions for the Metropolitan Opera, the English National Opera and The Royal Opera, among others. He tours extensively but home is the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn, which runs outreach programmes into the local New York community. He’s received numerous awards, including the Leonard Bernstein Award for the Elevation of Music in Society.In a humorous and revealing interview, Mark Morris looks back on his childhood in Seattle and his childhood passion for music and dance. It wasn’t very socially acceptable for a boy to become a dancer: “If you were in dance, you were a sissy. But I also was a sissy so what’s the problem?” He talks too about losing many friends to AIDS, and fearing that his own time was limited, a pressure that created a manic burst of creative energy. Music choices include Germaine Tailleferre, a French composer from the twenties whom he believes is unjustly neglected; Scarlatti; Handel; Lou Harrison; and Erik Satie. Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3

From Hollywood to European art house cinema, from Shakespeare to contemporary drama, Greta Scacchi is one of our most versatile actors. She talks to Michael Berkeley about the film that made her name in 1983 – Heat and Dust – and chooses music from the soundtrack featuring Zakir Hussain. She reveals how her musical training as a child – learning ballet, piano and singing - has been invaluable when she’s been called on to play and sing on film. She particularly loved the character she played in Jefferson in Paris, the eighteenth-century Anglo-Italian artist and musician Maria Cosway, and explains how difficult it was to pretend the play the harp on screen. We hear some of Maria Cosway’s music from that film. Greta chooses music by Satie which reminds her of her mother’s ballet school when she was a child. Her mother is still dancing at 87! And we hear one of Canteloube’s Chants d’Auvergne, and a Handel aria which illustrate Greta’s passion for the theatre; she chooses pieces which remind her of the places she loves – Sussex, Italy and Australia. We get an insight into her passion for jazz with music from Jimmy Guiffre and Fats Waller. And Greta speaks out about the importance of actors campaigning for causes they believe in – she’s passionate about the environment and even posed naked with a cod to draw attention to unsustainable fishing. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3

The comedian Rachel Parris talks to Michael Berkeley about her musical passions and how her life as a classical musician led to her career in comedy. Her hugely versatile career includes improvised comedy shows, stand-up, musical comedy and appearances on Radio 4’s The Now Show. She’s caused quite a stir with her hilarious turns as a faux-naïve reporter on BBC2’s satirical news show The Mash Report. During her teens Rachel thought she would have a career as a classical musician –– she has a Music degree from Oxford, she’s an accomplished singer, and an excellent pianist; indeed, until recently she was a piano teacher. Rachel talks to Michael about how she moved from music to comedy via drama school and how music still has a central place in her life. Her choices of pieces reflect the breadth of her musical passions, from a recording of Tallis in which she sings, to Bernstein and the American Songbook. She loves music that tells a story, particularly Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, and music that makes her laugh, like Tom Lehrer’s songs. Rachel talks movingly about depression and her work with The Samaritans, and we hear music by Debussy which she finds a comfort in difficult times. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3

Michael Berkeley talks to the philosopher Julian Baggini about the pleasures of serendipity, transience, philosophy and music. The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten, Do They Think You’re Stupid? and What’s It All About? are just three of the eye-catchingly titled books by Julian Baggini. He’s written 19 books in all, is the founding editor of The Philosophers’ Magazine, writes for newspapers, magazines and think tanks, and appears on radio and television. His latest book is How the World Thinks: A Global History of Philosophy.Julian has been described as a philosopher’s philosopher, but he also has a mission to liberate philosophy from its ivory tower and bring it to the general reader. The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten – his collection of 100 brief thought experiments – has been described as ‘mental fun-sized treats’ and ‘the Sudoku of moral philosophy’.Julian tells Michael about the joy he’s felt discovering pieces of music by Brahms, Ravel and Dvorak through chance encounters, and how he’s come to love music written for a video game by Jessica Curry when he met her on University Challenge.He believes that both music and philosophy can help us appreciate beauty, come to terms with the transience of existence, and accept that life can be bitter and sweet at the same time. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3

Michael Berkeley talks to the writer Preti Taneja about her wide-ranging love of music, from Indian gazals and ragas to Vivaldi and Shostakovich.Preti Taneja’s debut novel We That Are Young won last year’s Desmond Elliott prize and huge critical acclaim, after being rejected as ‘commercially unviable’ by multiple publishers in both London and Delhi.It’s a reworking of King Lear, set in contemporary India, and tells the story of a battle for power within a rich and turbulent Delhi family.Before she found success as a novelist Preti worked as a journalist, as a human rights campaigner, and as a teacher of writing in places as diverse as universities, prisons, youth charities and refugee camps - and she chooses a song by Ilham al Madfai that reminds her of working in Jordan with minority communities who had fled the war in Iraq. Preti talks about the music that reminds her of childhood holidays in Delhi, how she uses music in her writing, and why King Lear resonates so clearly in the India of today.A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3, produced by Jane Greenwood.

When he started out on an acting career, Oliver Ford Davies was given some extremely discouraging advice by his first director, who said: “You’ll be OK when you’re forty, and even better when you’re fifty!” Davies was only twenty-seven at the time so that was a bit off-putting, to say the least; but in fact that advice was clairvoyant. His big breakthrough did indeed come at the age of fifty, in 1990, when he was given the lead in David Hare’s Racing Demon at the National Theatre, for which he won an Olivier Award. Since then he’s played Lear at the Almeida, and Star Wars fans will know him as Sio Bibble (the governer of Naboo); he also appears as Cressen in the very popular Game of Thrones. Among numerous Shakespeare roles over the last 40 years at the RSC, he’s just finished playing Pandarus in Troilus and Cressida, a production which was shown in cinemas across the country. Looking back over a very varied and successful career, Oliver Ford Davies reflects on the ups and downs of a career which has been risky, and challenging, and richly enjoyable. He talks too about why big American films love English actors: because they can deliver unintelligible dialogue, and because they’re cheap. And he pays tribute to a great actor reading great poetry, in his choice of Paul Scofield reading T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. Other choices include Haydn, Stravinsky, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, and Mozart’s ‘The Marriage of Figaro’.Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3

Memory, desire, madness: these are the themes that fascinate Lisa Appignanesi and that she’s explored over the last forty years in novels, in memoirs, and in prize-winning books such as “Mad, Bad and Sad”, a history of women and mind doctors. Lisa Appignanesi is the Chair of the Royal Society of Literature and a former President of English PEN, an organisation which campaigns for free speech. She’s written about cabaret, about Proust and fin-de-siecle Paris, about Simone de Beauvoir, about Freud, and about her own troubled search for identity. In Private Passions she tells Michael Berkeley about her childhood in Poland, where she was born Elżbieta Borensztejn, and about the way identities in her family were always shifting, “always there for the making”. She reflects on the power of the dead to haunt us, expressed by Monteverdi in his opera Orfeo, and admires the strength of singers Bessie Smith and Lotte Lenya, alongside music choices such as Mozart's ’The Marriage of Figaro’, Laurie Anderson, and Prokofiev’s ‘Peter and the Wolf’. Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus Production for BBC Radio 3

Tim Firth is the man behind the show that captured the nation’s heart: Calendar Girls, the true story about a Women’s Institute who produced a naked calendar. It’s been a film, a play, and is now a musical.He’s also responsible for the hugely successful film Kinky Boots, as well as multi-award winning TV shows, films and more musicals including Neville’s Island, The Flint Street Nativity, Preston Front, and most recently The Band, a collaboration with his long-time friend Gary Barlow and Take That.But surprisingly there are no songs from musical theatre in Tim’s choices for Private Passions. Instead he shares with Michael Berkeley his love of Baroque, with music from Bach and from Albinoni (first heard on his honeymoon), and he chooses music by Delius and by Copland that resonates with the folk music he loved as a child. Tim talks movingly about the emotional impact of music in his life, whether it’s writing the perfect song for a show or being spellbound by hearing Gorecki for the first time in a forest in the Lake District. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3

Sigrid Rausing is a writer, publisher and philanthropist. She’s the co-founder of Portobello books, the owner of Granta books, and the editor of Granta literary magazine, a role she says she hugely enjoys. It’s impossible though to talk about her own achievements without mentioning her Swedish family background: her grandfather founded the packaging company Tetra Pak, and his brilliant idea for the invention of waxed cardboard cartons for milk and fruit juice brought him great wealth - and has allowed his grand-daughter to found one of the biggest philanthropic organizations in this country. But the family has been marked by great tragedy too: in 2012, Sigrid’s sister-in-law Eva died of a drugs overdose and her brother, who was also an addict, was arrested for possession of drugs, and for keeping his wife’s body at home with him.In conversation with Michael Berkeley, Sigrid talks about the terrible effect of drug addiction on her family, and the guilt she and everyone around her feels about what happened. She looks back on her early career as an anthropologist, and reflects on the pleasures and challenges of editing a literary magazine. Music choices include Mozart’s clarinet concerto, Brahms’s Handel Variations, Liszt’s transcription of Schubert, and Ella Fitzgerald singing “Anything Goes”. A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3 Produced by Elizabeth Burke

Michael Berkeley talks to the actor Clarke Peters about his passion for breaking down barriers between musical traditions. Best known for his television roles as Detective Lester Freeman in The Wire and Albert Lambreaux in Treme, Clarke has also appeared in films such as Notting Hill, Mona Lisa and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. And he has a rich career in music too – from busking in France in his youth to working as a backing singer for David Essex and for Joan Armatrading – if you listen carefully you can hear him on her iconic song Love and Affection. And he’s appeared in Chicago, Chess, and Porgy and Bess to name but a few musicals. In 1990 he created the award winning revue Five Guys Named Moe, based on the music of Louis Jordan. Clarke’s choices of music reflect the trans-Atlantic nature of his life: a piece written in France by the New Orleans composer Gottschalk, which he heard when filming Treme; music by Ravel and by Debussy; and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, which always takes him straight back to his birthplace, New York. And his final piece – Nat King Cole playing Rachmaninoff - illustrates perfectly his desire to open people’s ears to the cultural breadth of classical music. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3