Private Passions

A former Turner Prize-nominee, George Shaw is renowned for his highly detailed approach and suburban subject matter, and for his idiosyncratic medium - Humbrol enamel paint, typically used to colour model trains and aeroplanes.Armed with a sketchbook, the teenage Shaw made regular day trips from his home in a caravan on a Coventry council estate to the National Gallery in order to draw from works by artists he found inspiring. He's now back at the National Gallery with a major exhibition, My Back to Nature, the culmination of a two-year residency. He has developed into one of Britain's most inspiring contemporary painters, a close observer of nature, with the sharp eye of a Freud or Hockney.He talks to Michael about the music that inspires his life and work and chooses works by Schubert, Elgar, Purcell and Brian Eno.Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

On this, the 15th anniversary of 9/11, Michael Berkeley's guest is Daniel Libeskind, a world-renowned architect, known for concert halls, opera sets, museums, hotels and universities. In 2003 Libeskind won an international competition to produce an overarching vision for buildings which would stand on the site of the Twin Towers. That vision is now almost complete, and includes a memorial to those who were killed in the attacks. He's called his plan "a site of memory, a healing of New York". Daniel Libeskind had already made his reputation with buildings that symbolised and preserved tragic histories, such as the Jewish Museum in Berlin, and the German Military Museum in Dresden. In Private Passions, he talks to Michael Berkeley about the day he first visited the site and climbed down into the crater left in the earth. He says that experience changed his life - he began to hear the voices of the dead. He talks about how he decided this should be a "sacred site", and that the footprint of the twin towers should never be built on. He reveals his concept of a light memorial to the dead, created by using shafts of light filtered through the spaces between skyscrapers. The sun strikes the ground at exactly the same times as the planes hit the towers. Daniel Libeskind is extraordinarily musical; in fact, a gifted accordionist, he was something of a musical prodigy. He decided to follow architecture instead, but is still inspired by music. His music choices include Renée Fleming singing "Amazing Grace", Perotin; the contemporary Finnish composer Saariaho, and Mark Padmore singing Bach's Cantata for the 16th Sunday after Trinity - so the right cantata for 11 September 2016. Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

Steve Silberman is an award-winning investigative reporter based in San Francisco; he writes for The New Yorker, Nature, Wired and Time Magazine. He has spent ten years researching the untold history of autism for his book "Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently". Published last year, it won the biggest British prize for a non-fiction book, the Samuel Johnson prize, as well as many American awards. The book sets out to answer a deceptively simple question: why is so little understood about autism, 70 years after it was first discovered? Since writing it, Silberman has become an ally to thousands of people with autism who haven't had a voice, and for what's become known as "neurodiversity".In Private Passions, Steve Silberman talks to Michael Berkeley about his time listening to people with autism, trying to understand the world from their point of view. He discusses the connection between autism and eccentricity, and between autism and musical ability. He reveals too his own sense of being an outsider, growing up gay, and reminisces about years spent working as an assistant to the poet Allen Ginsberg. Steve Silberman's music choices are fascinating and unconventional, ranging from the 13th century to Steve Reich. He includes music by the contemporary American composer Lou Harrison, who was wonderfully eccentric - he built an American version of a gamelan out of hubcaps! Other music choices include Bill Evans with "Peace Piece" and "Timeless" by Oregon. Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

Michael Berkeley welcomes the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, as his Private Passions. The first woman, the first Scot, and the first openly gay person to hold the post, she was appointed in 2009, having won many awards for her poetry collections since taking first prize in the National Poetry Competition in 1983. Most recently, 'Rapture' (2005) won the TS Eliot Prize, and her latest collection, 'The Bees', won the 2011 Costa Book Award for Poetry.Born into a Roman Catholic family in the Gorbals, a poor area of Glasgow, Carol Ann developed a passionate love of literature at school, and for a decade from the age of 16 she lived with the Liverpool poet Adrian Henri. She had two plays performed at the Liverpool Playhouse and received an honours degree in phoilosophy from the University of Liverpool. In 1996 she was appointed a lecturer in poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University and later became creative director of its Writing School. She was appointed Poet Laureate in 2009. Her work as laureate includes poems on the MPs' expenses scandal, the deaths of the last British servicemen who fought in World War I, David Beckham's tendon injury, and the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. Her poems, which explore everyday experience and a rich fantasy life, are on the school curriculum in the UK.A keen music-lover, Carol Ann Duffy learnt the piano as a child. Her choices include Chopin's E major Etude Op.10 No.3, which her mother loved to hear her playing; extracts from Mozart's 'Marriage of Figaro' and and Christy Moore singing a song with words by W B Yeats. This edition, first broadcast in June 2012, is part of Radio 3's celebration of British music - Private Passions' guests this month are four poets from across the UK.

Michael Berkeley welcomes the actor, playwright and director Steven Berkoff, renowned for the visceral quality of his plays such as East, West, Decadence, Greek, Sink the Belgrano, Scumbags, Ritual in Blood and Messiah. He has also adapted and directed for the stage Kafka's Metamorphosis and The Trial, the Greek tragedy Agamemnon, and Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher. His plays, adaptations and his one-man show have toured widely abroad, from the Far East to the USA.As an actor, Steven has appeared in films ranging from A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, Octopussy and Beverly Hills Cop to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. On TV he has been seen in The Professionals, Star Trek and Jonathan Creek, among others. He has published a variety of books on the theatre, and an autobiography, Free Association.His eclectic musical choices range from music for the stage - Milhaud's ballet La création du monde, Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, Britten's opera A Midsummer Night's Dream and incidental music to Brecht's Mother Courage - to music that reflects his love of travel - Buddhist chant and an unusual Monkey Dance from Bali. There's also Ivo Pogorelich playing the second movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No.32 in C minor, Op.111, and Chet Baker with the Rogers and Hart classic My Funny Valentine.First broadcast in April 2012.

Michael Berkeley's guest on Private Passions this week is the best-selling children's author Judith Kerr. Now 89, Judith was born into a distinguished pre-war German Jewish intellectual family: her father, Alfred Kerr, was a well known journalist and critic, and her mother, Julia, a composer. The family fled from Berlin in 1933 after Hitler's rise to power, and lived in Switzerland and Paris before reaching London in 1936. In the 1950s Judith met and married Nigel Kneale, author of the famous BBC TV science fiction series Quatermass. Their son Matthew Kneale has followed in his parents' footsteps, becoming an acclaimed novelist, while their daughter Tacy is an artist.Judith is both a writer and an illustrator, best known for her children's books, including the much-loved Mog series (about a cat), 'The Tiger Who Came to Tea' and the novel for young adults 'When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit', which is based on her own experiences as a child refugee, and won the 1974 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis.Judith's musical choices include a fragment of an opera about Einstein written by her parents; an excerpt from the final scene of Mozart's opera Don Giovanni; the Jewish Memorial Prayer El Malei Rachamim performed at the 2001 International Holocaust Memorial Day in London; Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, which was a favourite of her father, and was played at his funeral; part of 'Mars' from Holst's The Planets, which served as the theme music for Quatermass; The Dance of the Knights from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, which was a favourite of her husband's, and finally her own personal favourite, the Kyrie from Mozart's Mass in C minor, K427.

Michael Berkeley's guest this week is the filmmaker, writer and playwright Mike Leigh, who began his career in the theatre and with TV dramas such as 'Abigail's Party' and 'Nuts in May', and went to to produce a string of original, award-winning films including 'Life is Sweet', 'Career Girls', the Gilbert and Sullivan biopic 'Topsy Turvy', 'Naked', 'Secrets and Lies', 'Happy Go Lucky', 'Vera Drake', and most recently, 'Another Year'. Many of his films involve an element of improvisation, and Mike Leigh has launched the careers of an impressive array of distinguished British actors, including Alison Steadman. Brenda Blethyn, David Thewlis, Sally Hawkins, Liz Smith and Jane Horrocks. His play 'Ecstasy' is currently enjoying a West End revival.Mike Leigh's choices begin with two extracts by Gilbert and Sullivan. He starts with a comic duet from 'Ruddigore' (I once was a very abandoned person)l, and goes on to 'The World is but a broken toy' from 'Princess Ida', which he loves for its sentimental charm. Mike Leigh sees Mozart's 'Cosi fan tutte' as essentially a comic opera, and has selected the gorgeous trio 'Soave sia il vento' from Act I. Then comes another facet of comic opera - the Doll's Song from Act II of Offenbach's 'The Tales of Hoffmann', which he used as the background to the brothel scene in 'Topsy Turvy'. There's also the original 1928 recording of the Ballad of Mack the Knife from Weill/Brecht's 'Threepenny Opera', an extract from a film score by Shostakovich, Jeanne Moreau singing 'Le Tourbillon de la vie' from Truffaut's famous film 'Jules et Jim'; 'Blue in Green' from Miles Davis' 'Kind of Blue', and finally the Rondo from Beethoven's Violin Concerto (Mike Leigh used Beethoven to great effect in 'Abigail's Party').

Michael Berkeley's guests is Jasper Conran, one of Britain's best-known fashion designers. In 1978, Conran began producing women's clothing, and has since concentrated on such diverse fields as home furnishings, crystal and china, as well as designing costumes and sets for ballets, plays and opera.His musical choices encompass singers such as Kathleen Ferrier, Ella Fitzgerald, Bessie Smith and Cat Stevens, as well as works by Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, and his favourite composer, Handel.M Berkeley: The Wakeful Poet (Music from Chaucer) (pub OUP) Beaux-Arts Brass Quintet BBQ BBQ 003, Tr 10 Duration: 25sTrad: Blow the Wind Southerly Kathleen Ferrier (contralto) Kathleen Ferrier DECCA 417 192-2, Tr 3 Duration: 2m20sSchubert: Impromptu No 4 in A flat, D899 Melvyn Tan (fortepiano) Schubert EMI CDC 7 49102-2, Tr 4 Duration: 6m48s Elizabeth Welch: Stormy Weather (Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler) LP Elizabeth Welch WORLD RECORDS SH 233 S1 B6 Duration: 3m23sHandel: Where'er you Walk (Semele - Act 2, Sc 3) Anthony Rolfe-Johson (tenor) English Baroque Soloists John Eliot Gardiner (conductor) Handel Semele ERATO 4509-99759-2 CD1, Tr 2 Duration: 4m58sBessie Smith: You Gotta Give Me Some (Spencer Williams) Clarence Williams (piano) Eddie Lang (guitar) Bessie Smith BBC BBCCD602 8 Duration: 2m45sMozart: Laudate Dominum (Vesperae solennes de Confessore, K339) Carolyn Samson (soprano) Choir of the King's Consort The King's Consort Robert King (conductor) Mozart HYPERION CDA 67560, Tr 5 Duration: 4m16sElla Fitzgerald: Undecided (Charles Shavers and Sid Robin) Chick Webb and his orchestra CDR The Very Best of Ella Fitzgerald STARDUST B001GIILLA, Tr 1 Duration: 3m17sChopin: Waltz in G flat, Op 70 No 1 Dinu Lipatti (piano) Chopin EMI 566904-2, Tr 6 Duration: 1m53sHandel: Comfort Ye My People (Messiah) Mark Padmore (tenor) The Sixteen Harry Christophers (conductor) Handel Messiah CORO COR 1606-2 CD1, Tr 2 Duration: 3m11sCat Stevens: Morning has broken (words Eleanor Farjeon; music arr Cat Stevens) Teaser and the Firecat ISLAND IMCD269, Tr 7 Duration: 3m16s.

Michael Berkeley's guest on Private Passions is the novelist and short story writer Michele Roberts. The child of a French mother and English father, she was brought up and still divides her time between the two countries. She studied English at Oxford University, worked for the British Council, and then became a writer. She is currently Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.She is the author of twelve highly acclaimed novels, including 'Daughters of the House' (1992), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the W H Smith Literary Award; 'Flesh and Blood' (1994), 'The Looking Glass' (2000), 'Reader, I Married Him' (2005), and her latest novel, 'Ignorance' (2012), a war-time novel set in France. She has also published a memoir, 'Paper Houses', dealing with the themes that inform her novels - love, feminist ideals and the legacy of her Catholic upbringing; and a collection of short stories of sex and love, entitled 'Mud' (2010).Music has always played an important part in Michele Roberts's life, and her choices begin with Bach's Magnificat and continue with an aria from Handel's cantata 'Donna, che in ciel di tanta luce splendi', in praise of the Virgin Mary. Michele says she wanted to be a nun as a teenager, and became fascinated by female mystics and saints, including Hildegard of Bingen. She loves Kathleen Ferrier's voice, singing Handel's 'O Thou that tellest good tidings to Zion', which she finds very comforting. She also appreciates the voices of Alfred Deller, Jacques Brel and Bob Dylan, as well as an Italian women partisans' song, Bella Ciao, which appeals to her republican sympathies, and the Portuguese fado singer Mariza. Her choices end as they began, with Bach.

Michael Berkeley's guest is the historian, biographer and critic Lucy Hughes-Hallett, whose books include a cultural history of the ancient Egyptian queen Cleopatra and a story of heroism told through eight famous lives from Achilles and Odysseus to Francis Drake and Garibaldi. Her latest book, The Pike, deals with the controversial life of the Italian poet and occasional politician Gabriele d'Annunzio, who evolved from romantic idealist to radical right-wing revolutionary, culminating in his dramatic attempt to seize political power in the Croatian city of Fiume (now Rijeka). Through his ideological journey, Lucy Hughes-Hallett examines the political turbulence of early 20th-century Europe and the rise of fascism.Lucy's musical enthusiasms range from Byzantine chant through operas by Monteverdi, Handel and Verdi to The Rolling Stones, and an extract from Debussy's Le martyre de Saint Sébastien.