Private Passions

The percussionist Ray Cooper is often referred to as the ‘father of rock and roll percussion’. He is renowned for his exuberant stage presence and for incorporating unusual instruments, including cowbells, glockenspiels, timpani and tubular bells to name but a few. He has worked with many of the world’s leading musicians including Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones, Billy Joel, Carly Simon, Eric Clapton, Sting, Art Garfunkel, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison. His most enduring collaboration has been with Elton John. Ray is on more than 90 of Elton’s recordings, and has performed over 1000 concerts with him, most recently on the Farewell Tour.In 1979, Ray was asked by George Harrison to help run Handmade Films and he remained at the helm for just over a decade, overseeing the production of seminal British films such as Withnail and I, Time Bandits and The Long Good Friday. Ray's musical choices include Bach, Shostakovich, John Tavener and Elton John. Producer: Clare Walker

Louise Welsh worked in a second-hand bookshop in Glasgow before she took the plunge to become a writer, bursting onto the scene in 2002 with her prize-winning crime novel, The Cutting Room. As the author of seven novels and the Plague Times Trilogy, she doesn’t shy away from difficult subjects and unpalatable truths in her fiction, exploring issues of identity, sexuality, class, immigration, viral pandemics and shady economics. Her latest book, To the Dogs, is a thriller centred around a university professor who finds himself dragged into his former life of violence and danger when his son is arrested on drugs charges. But despite these serious themes, Louise’s work is punctuated by a playful, dry sense of humour, highlighting the absurdity of certain situations - and a vivid vocabulary. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Glasgow University and she loves to collaborate. She has written short stories and plays, edited collections of poetry and has a long-standing working relationship with the composer Stuart MacRae, with whom she’s written four opera librettos. Her musical choices include works by Debussy, Purcell and Verdi.

Neil Hannon is a singer, songwriter and the driving force behind the band The Divine Comedy, which he founded in 1989. Along with hit singles such as National Express, and 12 albums with the band, his music appears in an impressively varied range of settings – including original songs for the recent film Wonka, a chamber opera inspired by Tolstoy for Covent Garden, and the theme tune for the sitcom Father Ted. Neil talks to Michael Berkeley about growing up in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland with a bishop for a father, writing his first pop song when he was 14, and how, as a self-described "pathetic twerp", he managed to make it in the pop world. His typically wide-ranging musical passions include works by Puccini, Stravinsky, Chopin and Ravel, alongside tracks by Michael Nyman, Kate Bush and Scott Walker. Producer: Graham Rogers

Professor Lorna Dawson is one of the UK’s leading forensic scientists. She examines soil in order to solve crimes. For over thirty years her pioneering techniques, using soil evidence on shoes, clothing and vehicles, have led to numerous high-profile convictions. Her work has received global recognition and now inspires crime writers such as Ian Rankin and Ann Cleeves. Lorna is head of the centre for soil forensics at the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen, which conducts research into land, crops, water and the environment. She also works with SEFARI, the Scottish Environment, Food and Agriculture Research Institutions, delivering farming systems that benefit the environment and nature. Lorna's choices include music by Elgar, Mozart and Ravel.

Biologist and writer Merlin Sheldrake explores the fascinating world of fungi, discussing his book 'Entangled Life' and collaboration with Bjork on a film about fungi. They delve into the connection between Bach's music and fungi, reflect on childhood fascination with decomposition, explore the oscillating nature of reality through Steve Reich's 'Pulses', discuss the influence of jazz on the speaker's musical journey, and delve into the potential of fungi in medicine, environmental cleanup, and myco-fabrication.

Nina Stibbe was fifty when she first became a published writer with Love Nina, a collection of letters she wrote to her sister in the 1980s about her time working as a very inexperienced young nanny for Mary-Kay Wilmers, editor of the London Review of books.She found herself running a home where Alan Bennett often appeared at suppertime and other famous neighbours and people would pop round - though Nina had often no idea who they were. Her affectionate, witty memoir won non-fiction Book of the Year in 2014 and was adapted by Nick Hornby into a BBC TV series.After nannying, Nina worked in publishing and then moved to Cornwall where she lived with her partner and children. Since the success of Love Nina, she has written six more books, four of them novels. Her latest, Went to London, Took the Dog, charts her first return to the capital for twenty years. It’s a break from domestic life back in Cornwall, or perhaps a fresh start altogether. Nina's musical choices include music by Handel, Mozart, Brahms and Benjamin Clementine.

Johnny Flynn is a polymath – as comfortable as an actor on stage and screen as he is writing and performing songs. You have perhaps seen him as Mr Knightley in the film Emma or as Ian Fleming in Operation Mincemeat. In his latest film, One Life, he stars alongside Anthony Hopkins, as the young Nicholas Winton, who helped Jewish children flee from the Nazis in what became known as the Kindertransport. He’s currently starring as Richard Burton in the play The Motive and the Cue, the story of how Burton and Sir John Gielgud clashed as they staged Hamlet on Broadway in 1964. Johnny has also released four albums with his band Johnny Flynn & The Sussex Wit. He composed the theme song for the acclaimed TV series Detectorists, and more recently he’s collaborated with the nature writer Robert MacFarlane on two folk albums: Lost in the Cedarwood and The Moon Also Rises. His musical choices include Paul Robeson, Sondheim and Bizet.

Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser first realised plants are extraordinary and astonishing at school, when introduced to the round and wrinkled peas of Gregor Mendel. She is fascinated by plant genetics and as Regius Professor of Botany at the University of Cambridge her particular focus has been on a hormone called auxin which controls the growth of plants. In 2020, she was appointed the chief executive of UK Research and Innovation whose mission is to work in partnership with research organisations, universities, businesses, charities and government to “push the frontiers of human knowledge and understanding" and deliver economic, social and cultural impact, with a budget of more than £8 billion each year. Dame Ottoline is a fellow of the Royal Society and in 2017 she was appointed DBE for services to plant science, science in society and equality and diversity in science.Her music choices include Mozart, Vaughan Williams and Debussy.

Walter Murch is a Hollywood legend. He’s won three Oscars for his sound and editing work on Apocalypse Now and The English Patient, and his credits include some of the most acclaimed and discussed films of the past half century – The Godfather trilogy, The Conversation, The Talented Mr Ripley. He co-wrote the first movie George Lucas ever directed – the dystopian science fiction drama THX 1138. In 1985 he made his own directorial debut with Return to Oz – an unofficial sequel to The Wizard of Oz. As an editor and sound mixer - and the only person to win Academy Awards in both categories - he’s thought deeply about the craft of cinema and all its possibilities, ideas which he shared in his book In the Blink of an Eye. Walter's musical choices include Wagner, Beethoven, Pergolesi and Chopin.

Kevin O’Hare is the director of the Royal Ballet and he probably finds it hard to remember a time when dance wasn’t part of his life. He started young, and joined the Royal Ballet School at the age of eleven. He went on to dance with Sadler’s Wells and Birmingham Royal Ballet, taking on roles such as Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake, Albrecht in Giselle and Romeo in Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet. He retired from the stage in 2000, at the age of 35, but before long he was back in the world of dance – this time behind the scenes. By 2009, he was Administrative Director of the Royal Ballet and oversaw their first tour to Cuba. Three years later he became overall director. He has since worked with a wide range of dancers, choreographers and composers, and helped steer the company through the Covid crisis. Kevin's choices include music by Tchaikovsky, Thomas Ades, Rachmaninov and Anna Clyne.