This Cultural Life

Composer Steve Reich is one of the most influential musicians of modern times. In the 1960s he helped rewrite the rules of composition, using analogue tape machines to experiment with rhythm, repetition and syncopation. As the godfather of musical minimalism, his influence on Philip Glass, David Bowie, Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead, and many other composers, has been enormous. Countless dance music producers also owe a debt to pieces including It's Gonna Rain, Drumming, Different Trains and Music for 18 Musicians. His music has been performed in concert halls all around the world, and his many awards include three Grammys, a Pulitzer Prize, the Polar Prize for Music and the Premium Imperiale. Steve Reich tells John Wilson how, at the age of 14, three very different recordings awoke his interest in music: Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, Bach's 5th Brandenburg Concerto, and a piece of bebop jazz featuring saxophonist Charlie Parker, trumpeter Miles Davis and drummer Kenny Clarke. Inspired to start a jazz quintet of his own, Reich began to study percussion before enrolling in a music history course at Cornell University. It was here he discovered the music of Pérotin, the 12th century French composer associated with the Notre Dame school of polyphony in Paris. His beautiful sustained harmonies had a profound influence on Reich's own compositions, including Four Organs (1970) and Music for 18 Musicians (1976).Steve Reich also explains the significance of two books on his music; Studies in African Music by A.M.Jones and Music in Bali by Colin McPhee, both of which led to a greater understanding of music from parts of the world where music is passed down aurally rather than through notation.Producer: Edwina Pitman Additional recording: Laura Pellicer

Painter Jenny Saville, renowned for her large-scale portraits of fleshy, naked women, made her name soon after leaving art school when her graduation exhibition work was bought by collector Charles Saatchi. In 1997, her work was also part of the landmark Royal Academy show Sensation, alongside now iconic pieces by Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and others. Since then, the main focus of her work - which has been shown in museums and galleries all around the world - has remained the female form. In 2018, a Jenny Saville painting called Propped sold at auction for £9.5m, at the time a world record for a work by a living female artist. A retrospective exhibition of over 50 of her paintings and drawings is being held at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Jenny Saville tells John Wilson how her childhood interest in painting was nurtured by her uncle, an art teacher, who took her to museums to understand the work of great artists. She says she was hugely inspired by seeing a Lucien Freud exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London in 1987, and that his large-scale nude portraits influenced her early style. Jenny recalls how a year spent at the University of Cincinnati, as part of her Glasgow School of Art degree course, also had an impact on her understanding of art history from a feminist perspective and refocused the theme of her painting. She describes how she made the monumental paintings of female nude figures, some with liposuction surgery markings on the bodies, which were shown at the Saatchi Gallery and at the Royal Academy Sensation exhibition. Jenny Saville also reflects on the later influence on her work of the Dutch-American abstract painter Willem de Kooning, and of her children with whom she paints at home. Producer: Edwina Pitman

Composer Alan Menken is the winner of more Academy Awards in competitive categories than any other living person. He's best known for his scores for the animated Disney films including The Little Mermaid, Pocahontas, Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. His first big hit was the musical Little Shop Of Horrors - one of several he created with lyricist Howard Ashman, his longtime writing partner. Other stage musicals include Sister Act, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, and Hercules, which recently opened in London's West End. Alan Menken also wrote the scores for Disney films Mirror Mirror, Enchanted and Tangled. As well as eight Academy Awards, he has also won eleven Grammys, seven Golden Globes, two Emmys and a Tony Award.Alan talks to John Wilson about his childhood in New York and the expectations of his parents that he would follow family tradition and become a dentist like his father. A musical talent from a young age, he recalls how seeing Walt Disney's Fantasia was the start of thinking about the marriage of music with story and images. Despite initial ambitions to be a singer-songwriter, enrolling in a workshop in New York for musical theatre composers, lyricists, and librettists led by composer Lehmann Engel taught him how to write for the stage. It is also through Engel that he met lyricist and director Howard Ashman with whom he went on to write many of the hit scores credited as the driving force behind the Disney Renaissance of the 1980s and 1990s. Tragically, Howard Ashman was diagnosed with HIV in 1988 and died at the age of 40 in 1991.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Gillian Anderson's breakthrough television role in the sci-fi series The X Files made her a global star in 1993, and she played cool-headed Agent Dana Scully for nearly a decade. She also starred in period dramas, including an acclaimed film adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel The House Of Mirth and, on television, in Bleak House, Great Expectations and War and Peace. Her theatre credits include A Doll's House, A Streetcar Named Desire and All About Eve, all of which saw her nominated for Olivier Awards. Gillian Anderson has won Golden Globe and Emmy Awards for the X Files, and also for The Crown in which she played Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. More recently, she found a new generation of fans for role as a sex therapist in the series Sex Education. Her latest film is The Salt Path, adapted from the bestselling memoir by Raynor Wynn.Gillian Anderson tells John Wilson how, after being born in Chicago, she moved with her parents to Crouch End, London, when she was five, and then to Michigan at the age of 11. After what she describes as ‘rebellious' teenage years, she studied at Chicago's DePaul University with drama teacher Ric Murphy, whom she cites as a major influence on her early acting ambitions. After a series of minor stage roles in New York, she auditioned for The X Files and the role of Agent Scully changed her life. She also chooses the actor Meryl Streep as a major inspiration after seeing her with Robert Redford in the 1985 romantic drama film Out Of Africa. Gillian also reveals how the work of the Serbian-born conceptual performance artist Marina Abramović has also been an influential cultural figure for her.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Pete Townshend is the songwriter, guitarist and co-founder of The Who. The band first stormed the pop charts sixty years ago, with teenage anthems including I Can't Explain, Substitute and My Generation. Broader songwriting ambitions led him to create the rock opera Tommy in 1969, and the concept album Quadrophenia four years later. Both projects were adapted as films, and Quadrophenia has now been staged as a ballet by Sadlers Wells. Throughout the seventies, The Who were regarded as the biggest and loudest live act in the world. They played at Woodstock, at Live Aid, Live 8 and the 2012 Olympic closing ceremony. Despite the deaths of drummer Keith Moon and bassist John Entwhistle, Townshend and singer Roger Daltrey continue to perform as The Who. Pete Townshend talks to John Wilson about the influence of his parents, who were both musicians. His father, the saxophonist Cliff Townshend, played in the popular dance band The Squadronaires, but it was his mother Betty, a singer, who was most supportive of Pete's early musical talent. Seeing Bill Haley and The Comets at Edgware Road Odeon in 1956 was another formative moment that introduced the teenage Townshend to the possibilities of a rock 'n' roll performance. Pete also reveals how his art school tutor Roy Ascot, who was head of the Ground Course at Ealing Art School, shaped his his approach to his band that was to become The Who. He also recounts how reading Labyrinths, a book of short stories by Jorge Luis Borges on the first US Who tour in 1967 opened his imagination and helped him expand his musical storytelling. Producer: Edwina Pitman

Pianist James Rhodes was a relative latecomer to a professional music, and was 30 when he performed his first concert. In 2010 he became the first core classical pianist to be signed to the world's biggest rock music label, Warner Brothers. He has recorded nine albums, including his most recent one, Mania, which features work by Bach, Chopin Brahms and other composers. He has also presented television documentaries about classical music and written five books, including his international bestselling memoir, Instrumental. But James Rhodes' adult life story is also one involving mental illness, addiction and suicidal despair in the wake of violent sexual abuse over several years as a small child.Talking to John Wilson, James remembers how hearing a recording of Bach's Chaconne from his Partita no. 2 transcribed for piano, was a life-changing experience, offering a sense of hope and wonder at a time when he was suffering terrible abuse. He also chooses his secondary school piano teacher Colin Stone as a major inspiration, although his early musical ambitions were thwarted at the age of 18. After some years working in the City, then suffering breakdowns and periods in psychiatric institutions, he returned to music after a decade away from he piano. He also credits a chance meeting with his future manager as a moment that led to him becoming an internationally acclaimed concert pianist.Producer: Edwina PitmanDetails of organisations offering information and support with mental health and self-harm, and for victims of child sexual abuse, are available at: www.bbc.co.uk/actionline

Since the late 1980s, Colombian artist Doris Salcedo has made work in response to conflict and political violence, drawing on the testimonies of victims to create metaphorical sculptures and installations about trauma, loss and survival. She is now recognised as one of the most important living artists, with work shown in museums and galleries around the world, including in the turbine hall of Tate Modern in 2007. Doris Salcedo is the 2025 recipient of the Whitechapel Gallery's prestigious Art Icon award, in recognition of her ‘profound contribution to the artistic landscape'. She talks to John Wilson about the first time she saw Goya's painting The Third of May 1808, also known as The Executions of the Third of May. The painting depicts the brutal aftermath of the Dos de Mayo Uprising in Madrid, during the Peninsular War, in which Spanish civilians were executed by French soldiers. Salcedo recalls how this painting showed her what a work of art could accomplish. It was seeing this painting that inspired her artistic purpose of trying to reveal the true cost of war in her work. Salcedo also explains how the poetry of Paul Celan, the French-Romanian poet and Holocaust survivor has been a significant influence on her and her art , and how the testimonies of the Colombian victims of violence have defined her work.Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used: Paul Celan, Psalm, read by Robert Rietty

Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason was born in Nottingham in 1999 into a big musical family. He and his six siblings all grew up learning classical instruments, and appeared on Britain's Got Talent in 2015. Sheku first made his mark as a solo performer the following year when he won the BBC Young Musician Of The Year competition. In 2018 a global audience of over a billion watched him perform live at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Since then he has received two classical Brit awards, An MBE for services to music, and performed at the Proms every year since 2017. His book The Power Of Music charts his creative journey, whilst his new album - his fifth release - includes recording of works by Shostakovich and Britten. Sheku talks to John Wilson about the early influence of his paternal grandfather, a classical music lover who encouraged an appreciation of chamber music, including Schubert's Trout Quintet. Sheku also discusses his cellist heroes Jacqueline du Pré and Mstislav Rostropovich and explains how the music of reggae superstar Bob Marley has been an inspiration throughout his life.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Choreographer Sir Wayne McGregor is one of the most acclaimed, innovative and influential figures in contemporary dance. His works are often the result of creative collaborations with artists, musicians, filmmakers, or with scientists to explore technological issues. In 2006 he was appointed as Resident Choreographer at the Royal Ballet. He has created more than 20 new works at Covent Garden in that time, including Chroma, set to music by Joby Talbot and The White Stripes, and Woolf Works, a full-length ballet based on the life and writings of Virginia Woolf. More recently, McGregor brought the post-apocalyptic vision of Margaret Atwood to the stage in his ballet MaddAddam, based on the writer's acclaimed trilogy of novels. He has worked as a movement director on films including Harry Potter Goblet Of Fire and Mary Queen Of Scots, collaborated with bands including Radiohead and Chemical Brothers, and choreographed the virtual concert, ABBA Voyage. In October 2025, Somerset House in London will mount a landmark exhibition dedicated to McGregor's trailblazing collaborations that have radically defined how we think about performance, movement, and the body. Having won numerous awards, including two Oliviers, Sir Wayne McGregor was knighted in 2024.Wayne McGregor talks to John Wilson about his childhood in Stockport, where he took dance classes and was inspired by John Travolta's moves in Saturday Night Fever. He recalls the house and techno music of the late 80s when he was a student, and how the freedom of expression he felt on nightclub dance-floors informed his style of choreography. Whilst living in New York after leaving university, Wayne came across an open-air performance by the legendary American choreographer Merce Cunningham, whose company was dancing to live music conducted by the avant-garde composer John Cage. It was a chance encounter that had a profound impact on McGregor. He also discusses how science and technology has been a major thematic influence on much of his work in recent years, and how AI has been used to create new works through analysis of physical movement and artistic expression.Producer Edwina Pitman

Actor Sir Simon Russell Beale is widely acclaimed as one of the greatest actors of his generation. He has played many leading roles at National Theatre and RSC, including Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear. He is currently starring in Titus Andronicus at the RSC. His awards include three Olivier Awards, two BAFTAs, and a Tony Award in 2022 for his leading role in The Lehman Trilogy, which had transferred from London. Simon Russell Beale was knighted in 2019 for services to drama. Simon tells John Wilson about his childhood and his visits to his family in the boarding school holidays at their home in Penang and Singapore. Trained as a chorister from an early age, he reveals how J.S. Bach's St Matthew Passion evokes the thrill of singing at his choir school. Simon very nearly embarked on a career in music before switching to drama and tells John about the significance of the Macbeth soliloquy that began a lifetime love of Shakespeare. He also reveals the central role that pubs play in the learning of his lines.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Maggie O'Farrell is the author of nine novels. Her debut, After You'd Gone, was published 25 years ago this year and won the Betty Trask Prize in 2001. Her 2010 book The Hand That First Held Mine won the Costa Novel Award; and Hamnet, her hugely acclaimed and bestselling story of the death of Shakespeare's son, won the 2020 Women's Prize for fiction. Maggie O'Farrell has also written a memoir; I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death. Maggie tells John Wilson about some of her creative influences including the Finnish writer Tove Jansson, whose book Moominland Midwinter she first read at the age of eight when she was ill in bed, suffering from encephalitis. The poet Michael Donaghy gave Maggie valuable writing advice when she attended his poetry workshops at City University and inspired her with his recitations of poetry from memory. Maggie also reveals how seeing a David Hockney photomontages called The Scrabble Game hugely influenced the way she constructs narrative and time-frame in her novels.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Screenwriter and playwright Abi Morgan has worked across a diverse array of themes and genres for more than 25 years. She wrote the television series The Split, a domestic drama involving divorce lawyers, and created the psychological Netflix series Eric. Her other television credits include Sex Traffic, for which she won a BAFTA for Best Drama serial in 2005, and The Hour, the television news drama which earned her an Emmy award in 2012. Her film credits include The Iron Lady, which starred Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher; historical drama Suffragette; and Shame, co-written with the director Steve McQueen. Her recent book This Is Not A Pity Memoir recounts her husband's recovery after serious illness, and her own treatment for cancer. Abi Morgan tells John Wilson about her childhood in a theatrical family; her father was the director Gareth Morgan and her mother is the actor Pat England. She chooses the author, screenwriter and director Nora Ephron as an important influence, and particularly the film Heartburn which Ephron adapted from her semi-autobiographical divorce novel Heartburn. Abi Morgan also recalls the work of television screenwriter Kay Mellor, whose series Band Of Gold and Playing The Field also influenced her own writing. She describes how seeing an exhibition of the work of artist Cornelia Parker, including her installation Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View, inspired some of Abi's early theatre work including her plays Splendour and The Mistress Contract. Producer Edwina Pitman

The internationally acclaimed and hugely influential artist Theaster Gates was born, raised and works in Chicago. He trained as a ceramicist, and still makes pottery, but it's just one part of a diverse artistic output that also includes painting, sculpture and vast installations, in works which often explore the black experience in contemporary America. He is best known for redeveloping derelict buildings for community projects, using art to transform run-down neighbourhoods of his city. A recipient of the prestigious Artes Mundi Prize, Gates is a professor at the University of Chicago and received the French government's prestigious Légion d'Honneur. Theaster Gates is part of the creative team behind the Barack Obama Presidential Centre currently under construction in Chicago. In 2022 he created the annual Serpentine Pavilion in London, a piece called Black Chapel which was conceived as a monument to his father. His most recent exhibition is 1965: Malcolm in Winter: A Translation Exercise at White Cube gallery.Theaster Gates tells John Wilson about the influence of his family upbringing. The youngest of nine siblings, and the only boy, he recalls assisting his father as he worked as a roofer. Later, when he was an established artist, and having inherited his father's tools and tar kettle, Theaster began to make paintings using hot bitumen in tribute to his father's labour. He also explains how, as a high achieving pupil, he was 'bussed' to a predominantly white school far from his home neighbourhood, and benefited from cultural opportunities that he may not have received otherwise. He also chooses the experience of spending a year in Japan learning ancient pottery techniques, and beginning his practise as a ceramicist. Producer Edwina Pitman

Doherty became famous in the 2000s with The Libertines, the band he formed and fronted alongside fellow singer and guitarist Carl Barât. He became notorious as his own drug addictions led to break ups with the band and numerous arrests. He reflects on a childhood spent moving around the world following his father's postings in the British Army, the beginnings of The Libertines, the lows of addiction, and the family life he now lives in France. Here's a short clip from the episode.

The premiere of David Hare's play Plenty at the National Theatre in 1978 marked him out as one of the UK's most skilled and socially conscious playwrights. Plenty transferred to Broadway, Hare adapted it into a film starring Meryl Streep, and in the following years he became known as a writer for whom the political and the personal are deeply entwined. Often referred to as Britain's pre-eminent ‘state of the nation playwright', his plays in the 1980s examined a wide range of social and political issues, including the Church of England in Racing Demon, the judiciary in Murmuring Judges and party politics in The Absence of War. He tackled international geopolitics in Via Dolorosa - about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - and the invasion of Iraq with Stuff Happens and the Vertical Hour. Equally skilled as a screenwriter, his film screenplays for The Hours and The Reader saw him twice nominated for Academy Awards. David Hare was knighted in 1998 for ‘services to theatre'. He talks to John Wilson about how his lower-middle class background and family life in Bexhill-on-Sea stimulated his imagination. He pays tribute to some of the most formative people in his life: his Cambridge university tutor, the Welsh writer and academic Raymond Williams, whose maxim that ‘culture is ordinary' had a profound effect on his life as a writer; the actress Kate Nelligan, who starred in several of Hare's plays, including Plenty; and his wife Nicole Farhi who, he says, transformed his idea of himself and who inadvertently helped inspire one of his best loved plays, Skylight. Producer: Edwina Pitman

Born and raised in south London, Cynthia Erivo made her name with musical theatre in London, starring in shows including The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg and Sister Act. In 2015 she became a Broadway star and won Tony, Emmy and Grammy awards for her role in The Color Purple, the musical adaptation of the Alice Walker novel which had transferred from London. Her screen acting credits include the title role in Harriet, about the 19th century abolitionist and campaigner Harriet Tubman, a film which earned her two Academy Award nominations, including for Best Actress. Oscar nominated again for her lead role in the musical film Wicked, she became the first black British woman to receive multiple Academy award nominations for acting. An acclaimed singer, she performed a solo show of songs made famous by female artists including Aretha Franklin, Etta James and Barbra Streisand at the 2022 BBC Proms. Cynthia Erivo tells John Wilson about the influence of her Nigerian born mother, who raised her as a single mum. She remembers two mentors who encouraged her to perform at at young age; school music teacher Helen Rycroft, and Rae McKen who ran a local drama club. Cynthia recalls winning a place at the prestigious drama school RADA, and returning to become Vice President of the institution last year. She talks about the emotional pressures she underwent on playing Celie in The Color Purple, a story of abuse and survival, and how the themes of prejudice and acceptance explored in the musical Wicked, resonated so strongly with her. Cynthia also chooses the 2015 Alexander McQueen exhibition Savage Beauty at the V&A as a inspiring creative moment, and discusses her love of glamorous fashion. Producer: Edwina Pitman

American conductor Marin Alsop was the first woman to lead major orchestras in the UK, South America and in the United States, becoming principal conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2007. Nominated for Grammy Awards five times, in 2013 she became the first ever woman to lead the Last Night Of The Proms, and is now regarded as one of the greatest conductors in the world. She talks to John Wilson about her professional musician parents who nurtured her love of music and supported her career choice from the age of 9 when she first revealed she wanted to be a conductor. Marin also talks about Leonard Bernstein, the great American composer and conductor, who inspired her ambitions and later became a mentor to her. She also chooses Carl Jung's work The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, and explains how his theories have helped her in leading orchestras around the world.Producer: Edwina PitmanMusic and archive used: Serenade in C major for String Orchestra, Op. 48; Valse, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, New York City Ballet Orchestra, 1986 Irish Spring commercial: "Clean as a Whistle" 1980 Leonard Bernstein, Young People's Concerts: "What is Classical Music?", CBS Television, 24 January 1959 Omnibus: Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story, BBC2, 10 May 1985 Archive of Leonard Bernstein and Marin Alsop at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, 1987 Leonard Bernstein, Young People's Concerts: "What Does Music Mean?", CBS Television, 18 January 1958 Archive of OrchKids concert, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Woman's Hour, BBC Radio 4, 26 July, 2005 Rhapsody in Blue, George Gershwin, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop Last Night of the Proms, BBC1, 7 September 2013 Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, "Resurrection", Gustav Mahler, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop

Having worked as a BBC television journalist, and as political editor for the Observer newspaper, Robert Harris published his debut novel Fatherland in 1992. A counterfactual story set in the 1960s that imagines Nazi Germany had won the Second World War, the book was a global bestseller. Since then Robert Harris has written 15 novels, mainly historical fiction which ranges from the ancient Roman politics of Pompeii and his Cicero trilogy, to the Restoration era manhunt of Act Of Oblivion, and Papal thriller Conclave. His most recent novel Precipice is about the romantic relationship between prime minister Herbert Asquith young socialite Venetia Stanley during the First World War. Robert Harris tells John Wilson about how reading The Origins of the Second World War by the historian A. J. P. Taylor, as a teenager ignited his interest in looking at history from perspectives that challenge the accepted narratives. Later, reading both the fiction and non-fiction of George Orwell inspired him to attempt to make writing about politics into an art form, as Orwell had done in works including 1984.Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used: Did Hitler Cause The War?, BBC1, 9 July 1961 The Hitler Diaries, Newsnight, BBC2, 8 July 1985 Reading from Fatherland, Robert Harris Reading from 1984, George Orwell, BBC Radio 4, 2 January 1984 Reading from The Ghost, Robert Harris

James Ivory formed the filmmaking company Merchant Ivory with producer Ismail Merchant and the writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala in 1961. The company went on to produce over 40 films and became synonymous with a particular sumptuous movie genre in the 80s and 90s, often adapted from literary classics. Merchant Ivory won awards and acclaim for A Room With A View, Howard's End, The Remains Of The Day and many more. In 2018, at the age of 89, James Ivory became the oldest ever winner of an Academy Award. Having been nominated three times previously for best director, he won the best adapted screenplay Oscar for the coming-of-age drama Call Me By Your Name. Now 96 years old, James Ivory recalls his upbringing in Oregon, the son of a timber merchant. He says that seeing Gone With the Wind soon after the film had first been released in 1939 was a formative moment in his love of cinema. Having initially studied architecture, he enrolled at the University of California to study cinema and began making short films. It was during a trip to India that he first became fascinated with the country and was introduced to the great Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray, who was a hugely influential figure. James Ivory also talks about the unique relationship he had with Ismail Merchant and Ruth Jhabvala whom he describes as his "life's partners".Producer: Edwina Pitman

Chilean author Isabel Allende became an international literary star after the publication of her 1982 debut novel The House Of the Spirits, an epic family saga set amidst violent political upheavals. Since then she has written 21 novels and five works of non-fiction, and has sold over 80 million copies worldwide. Isabel Allende tells John Wilson about her upbringing in Santiago and how, after her parents split, her grandfather became a hugely influential figure in her life, encouraging her love of storytelling. She recalls reading the classic Middle Eastern folktales the Thousand and One Nights aged 14 and explains how the themes of love, magic and fantasy, inspired her own fiction later in life. Isabel also discusses her relationship with Salvador Allende, her father's cousin, who served as President of Chile for three years until he died during the coup of 1973. Having worked as a journalist and broadcaster, she felt increasingly unsafe under the rule of the military junta led by General Pinochet and fought refuge with her family in Venezuela. It was during a 13 year exile from her homeland that she began writing The House Of The Spirits, initially as a series of letters to her elderly grandfather in Chile. In 1992 Isabel Allende's daughter Paula tragically died aged 29 having fallen ill and been in a coma for a year. Isabel recalls how she channel her grief, and celebrated her daughter's life, in the bestselling memoir Paula. Producer: Edwina Pitman

Thelma Schoonmaker has, for over five decades, been Martin Scorsese's cutting room collaborator. Having edited his first feature film in 1967, she has worked on every Scorsese movie since Raging Bull, including Goodfellas, Casino, The Departed, Wolf Of Wall Street, right up to his most recent features The Irishman and Killers Of The Flower Moon. As the widow of the legendary British filmmaker Michael Powell, she has also played a key role in the restoration of classic Powell and Pressburger films including The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus and A Matter Of Life And Death. Thelma Schoonmaker has won three Academy Awards, more than any other film editor. Thelma tells John Wilson how enrolling on a six week film making course as a young graduate in New York led to her meeting and helping Martin Scorsese edit a short film he was making. He then asked her to edit his 1967 feature film debut, Who's That Knocking at My Door and their partnership began in earnest. She recalls how she and Scorsese were part of the editing team on Michael Wadleigh's music festival documentary, Woodstock for which she received her first an Oscar nomination for Best Film Editing - the first documentary ever to be nominated in that category. Thelma reveals the process of working with Scorsese in the cutting room and how, through him, she met her late husband Michael Powell, whose films with Emeric Pressburger, both she and Scorsese had so admired from childhood.Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive and music used: The Red Shoes, Powell & Pressburger, 1948 Who's That Knocking at My Door, Martin Scorsese, 1967 I Can't Explain, The Who, Live at Woodstock, 1969 See Me. Feel Me, The Who, Live at Woodstock, 1969 Star Spangled Banner, Jimi Hendrix, Live at Woodstock, 1969 Raging Bull, Martin Scorsese, 1980 Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie-editing, BBC4, 30 August 2005 Passion: Music for The Last Temptation of Christ, Peter Gabriel Sunshine of Your Love, Cream Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana, Pietro Mascagni Love Is Strange, Mickey & Sylvia Layla, Derek & The Dominos A Matter of Life and Death, Powell & Pressburger, 1946 Michael and Martin, BBC Radio 4, 30 June 2005

A star of stage and screen, Bill Nighy has enjoyed a fifty year career and is now among Britain's most prolific and much loved actors. Acclaimed for National Theatre roles in plays by David Hare and Tom Stoppard, his popular appeal lies with scene-stealing appearances in films including Pirates Of The Caribbean, Harry Potter and, most famously, Love Actually. Bill Nighy has won Bafta and Golden Globe awards and was Oscar nominated for his starring role in the 2022 historical drama Living. His most recent film is Joy in which he plays obstetrician Patrick Steptoe, one of the pioneers of fertility treatment. Bill Nighy talks to John Wilson about some of the earliest influences on his career including a school drama teacher. He also recalls joining the Liverpool Everyman rep company in the 1970s and the influence of playwright David Hare who cast him in many of his works including Pravda, The Vertical Hour and Skylight.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Theatre, opera and film director Julie Taymor is regarded as one of the most imaginative directors and designers working today. Her stage version of the Lion King is the highest grossing show in Broadway history, having made nearly $2 billion, and it recently marked its 25th year in London. The Lion King Julie two Tony Awards, including for best director of a musical in 1997, making her the first woman to do so. Julie Taymor has told Shakespearean stories on stage and the big screen including Titus, starring Anthony Hopkins and The Tempest with Helen Mirren. Her film credits also include Frida, a biopic of painter Frida Kahlo, and the Beatles jukebox musical movie Across The Universe. She tells John Wilson how seeing Rashomon, Akira Kurosawa's 1950 film, as a teenager, was a formative cultural experience. Kurosawa's ingenious approach to narrative opened her eyes for the first time about the possibilities of innovative storytelling. She also recalls how her travels around Indonesia and Bali after graduation, and in particular, witnessing a ceremony in the isolated Balinese village of Trunyan have had a profound impact on her work as a designer and director. Julie reveals how she came up with the ground-breaking concept and some of the designs for the stage version of Disney's The Lion King. She also gives her opinion on some of the difficulties faced by the ill-fated Broadway musical Spider Man: Turn Off The Dark, on which she was co-writer and director until being replaced during its previews. The production, which featured music and lyrics by Bono and The Edge of U2, was ridden with technical and financial problems, and resulted in several legal disputes.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Novelist, playwright and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi's first screenplay, My Beautiful Launderette brought him Oscar and BAFTA nominations in 1985. Five years later his debut novel The Buddha Of Suburbia, set amidst the social divisions of mid 70's Britain, became a bestseller and was adapted as a BBC television series. After eleven screenplays including My Son The Fanatic, Venus and The Mother, and nine novels, including Intimacy and the Black Album, his latest book is a memoir called Shattered. It records the year he spent in hospital after a fall on Boxing Day 2022 which has left him paralysed.Hanif talks to John Wilson about the influence of his father, also a writer, who in part inspired his debut novel The Buddha Of Suburbia. He also talks about the influence of Freudian analysis on his writing and how he is coping with the effects of his life-changing accident.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Nile Rodgers is one of the most successful and influential figures in popular music. As a songwriter, producer and arranger he has enjoyed a 50 year career with his bands Chic and Sister Sledge, and collaborations with artists including Diana Ross, David Bowie, Duran Duran, Madonna, Daft Punk and Beyoncé.Bringing his 1959 Fender Stratocaster guitar to the This Cultural Life studio, Nile tells John Wilson how the instrument has been the bedrock of almost every record that he worked on, and acquiring the nickname 'The Hitmaker'. He discusses his bohemian upbringing in 1950s New York with his mother and stepfather who were both drug users. He chooses as one of his most important influences his jazz guitar tutor Ted Dunbar who taught him not only about musical technique but also how to appreciate the artistry of a hit tune. “It speaks to the souls of a million strangers” he was told. Nile Rodgers reminisces about his musical partner Bernard Edwards, with whom he set up the Chic Organisation after the pair first met on the club circuit playing with cover bands. He discusses their song writing techniques and the importance of what they called ‘deep hidden meaning' in lyrics. He also reflects on the untimely death of Bernard Edwards in 1996 shortly after he played a gig with Nile in Tokyo, and why he continues to pay musical tribute to his friend in his globally-touring stage show which includes the songs of Chic and other artists they worked with. Producer: Edwina Pitman

The novelist, biographer and critic Dame Margaret Drabble published her debut novel in 1963. She quickly went on to become a bestselling and critically acclaimed chronicler of the lives of modern women in a series of contemporary realist stories, often based on her own life and experiences. Her 19 novels include The Millstone, The Waterfall, The Ice Age and The Radiant Way, and her non-fiction includes books on Thomas Hardy, William Wordsworth and Arnold Bennett. She has also edited the Oxford Companion to English Literature. Dame Margaret tells John Wilson about her upbringing in Sheffield and how winning a scholarship to Newnham College, Cambridge, shaped her literary tastes. It was there that she heard the lectures of the academic F R Leavis and first discovered contemporary novels by Angus Wilson and Saul Bellow. She became an actress and worked for the Royal Shakespeare Company before her first novel, A Summer Birdcage, the story of the relationship between two sisters, was published in 1963. She recalls how her literary career began in the wings of the RSC and talks candidly about her often strained relationship with her older sister, the late novelist A S Byatt. Dame Margaret also discusses the influence of her friend, the Nobel Prize-winning author Doris Lessing.Producer: Edwina Pitman

For over more than five decades the Serbian conceptual and performance artist Marina Abramović has used her own body as her artistic medium, exploring the human condition in works that are often feats of endurance, exhaustion and pain. From her earliest works such as Rhythm 0, in which Abramović invited audiences to freely interact with her however they chose, to her long-durational work The Artist is Present, she has put herself in danger at the mercy of audiences all in the name of art. Abramović talks to John Wilson about her unhappy childhood in the former Yugoslavia with strict parents who had both been war heroes. She recalls how at age 14, a dangerous game of Russian roulette led her to Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot and how the book and its author's life sparked her creative imagination. She also reveals how two films, Alain Resnais' enigmatic 1961 French New Wave classic Last Year at Marienbad, and Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1968 movie Teorema, starring Terence Stamp, have inspired aspects of her work. Producer: Edwina Pitman

Having started out as a current affairs journalist, Peter Kosminsky made his name by telling contemporary social and political stories in the form of television drama. Warriors was about British soldiers in the peace-keeping force in Bosnia; The Government Inspector dramatised the events surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly; The State explored the radicalisation of British Islamists. Kosminsky is also acclaimed for his television adaptations of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy. He has won six BAFTA Awards, including one for his outstanding contribution to British television. Peter talks to John Wilson about the huge influence of his parents. He recalls how his left wing father and his mother who had been a kindertransport child, shaped his interest social justice from the perspective of the outsider, the refugee and the disenfranchised. Seeing Ken Loach's 1975 BBC television drama Days of Hope was a another turning point, and revealed to the 18 year old Kosminsky, the huge emotional power of the medium of television drama. He also explains how a letter from a British soldier in response to his 1999 drama Warriors led to his acclaimed and controversial Channel 4 series The Promise, 11 years later.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Marlon James made his name in 2014 with A Brief History Of Seven Killings, a novel which interweaves various narratives over several decades, starting with the attempted assassination of reggae superstar Bob Marley in 1976. Having won the Booker and the American Book Award, and becoming an international bestselling author, he moved into the fantasy genre with his next two novels Black Leopard, Red Wolf and Moon Witch, Spider King. A professor of English, Marlon James teaches creative writing at a university in Minnesota, USA, where he lives. Marlon tells John Wilson about hearing Jamaican dub poet Jean Binta-Breeze's work Riddym-Ravings on the radio when he was a teenager. The use of patois and rhyme to tell a serious story changed the lexicon he felt he could write in. The music of rock band Nirvana and its lead singer Kurt Cobain was also a huge influence on the young Marlon James who was at the time confused about his sexuality and living with undiagnosed depression. James also chooses the novel Sula by Toni Morrison, which contains a scene that changed the way he approached life and made him realise he only had to be in service to himself.Producer: Edwina Pitman

The New Zealand born opera singer Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is one of the world's greatest sopranos. She enjoyed a 50 year career singing lead roles in opera houses around the globe, and on dozens of studio recordings. Since retiring in 2017 she has focussed on leading her Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation which supports young opera singers from her home country.Dame Kiri talks to John Wilson about her early life in Gisborne and Auckland, New Zealand. Of Māori heritage, she was adopted as a baby and cites both her parents as a huge influence on her choice of career and work ethic. As a teenager she loved musical theatre, her favourite being Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story which she was later to record in an operatic version conducted by Bernstein himself. Moving to London in 1966 to study at the Royal Opera Centre, her education in opera began in earnest under her teacher Vera Rózsa. Her breakthrough role came in 1971 when she was cast as the Countess Almaviva in the Royal Opera House's production of The Marriage of Figaro. Her Metropolitan Opera House debut followed three years later when she was asked at the last minute to replace the soprano singing Desdemona in Verdi's Otello for the opening performance. Dame Kiri discusses the fame and attention she attracted when in 1981 she performed at the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, watched live by 600 million people. After over 60 years of performing, she also talks about her decision to finally retire in 2017.Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used: Omnibus : Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story, BBC1, 10 May 1985 BBC Sound Archive, Kiri Te Kanawa interview with Andrew Sakley, 1966 Soprano Sundays, BBC2, 21 Dec 1975 Le Nozze di Figaro, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, 1971 Otello, Metropolitan Opera New York, 1974 BBC Sound Archive, The marriage service in St. Paul's Cathedral of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, 29 July 1981 Top Of The Pops, BBC1, 24 October 1991 Parkinson, BBC1, 18 March 1981 Going Live, BBC1, October 1991 Wogan BBC1, 25 Dec 1984

Lee Child created his tough guy protagonist Jack Reacher, a former military policeman who roams America fighting crime, in 1997. Writing a book a year since his debut Killing Floor, Lee Child established himself as one of the most acclaimed and popular novelists in his genre, and has now sold over 100 million copies worldwide. The Reacher books have been adapted for a film starring Tom Cruise and, more recently, an Amazon Prime television series. Lee Child's latest publication, Safe Enough, is a collection of short stories. Talking to John Wilson, Child recalls his upbringing in Birmingham and how his childhood passion for reading was fuelled by frequent visits to the local library. For This Cultural Life, he chooses a Ladybird book which told the Biblical story of David and Goliath as an early inspiration, acknowledging that the giant figure of Goliath probably inspired the physique of 6'5” tall Reacher. He also remembers the impact of a book called My American Home which depicted an array of houses and apartments throughout America, the country in which Child would later live and set his novels. He also discusses how working for 18 years as a Granada television producer, overseeing the transmission of dramas including Brideshead Revisited, helped forge his understanding of storytelling. His work as a union shop steward, which brought him into conflict with management and eventually led to him being made redundant, was the catalyst for his new career as a crime novelist in the late 1990s. His debut Reacher novel, a violent tale of vengeance and rough justice was, he admits, written out of anger following his dismissal from Granada. Lee Child also chooses the 1990 movie Dances With Wolves, directed by and starring Kevin Costner, as another influence on the creation of his fictional hero Jack Reacher. Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used: Reading from Worth Dying For by Lee Child, The Knight Errant: Lee Child - A Culture Show Special, BBC2, 20 Dec 2012 Clip from Brideshead Revisited, Granada Television, ITV, 12 October 1981 Clip from Dances with Wolves, Kevin Costner, 1990 Clip from Jack Reacher, Christopher McQuarrie, 2012

The grandfather of British Pop Art, Sir Peter Blake is one of most influential and popular artists of his generation. A Royal Academician with work in the national collection, including Tate and the National Portrait Gallery, he is renowned for paintings and collages that borrow imagery from advertising, cinema and music. Having created The Beatles' Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band sleeve in 1967 he became the go-to album designer for other musical artists including The Who, Paul Weller, Madness and Oasis. He was knighted for services to art in 2002.Sir Peter tells John Wilson how, after a working class upbringing in Dartford, Kent, he won a place at the Royal College of Art alongside fellow students Bridget Riley and Frank Auerbach. He recalls being influenced by early American pop artists including Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, and how he began making art inspired by everyday popular imagery. He chooses Dylan Thomas's 1954 radio play Under Milk Wood as a work which captivated his imagination and later inspired a series of his artworks based on the characters, and also cites Max Miller, the music hall artist known as 'the Cheeky Chappie'; as a creative influence. Sir Peter remembers how he made the iconic Sgt Pepper sleeve using waxwork dummies and life size cut-out figures depicting well-known people chosen by Peter and The Beatles themselves. Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used: Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas, performed by Richard Burton, BBC Third Programme, 25 Jan 1954 Max Miller, introduced by Wilfred Pickles at the Festival of Variety, BBC Light Programme, 6 May 1951 Max Miller archive from Celebration, The Cheeky Chappie, BBC Radio 4, 3 July 1974 Monitor: 89: Pop Goes The Easel, BBC1, 25 March 1962 Peter Blake: Work in Progress, BBC2, 21 February 1983 Newsnight, BBC2, 7 February 1983 Ian Dury, Peter the Painter

Director and actor Simon McBurney, one of the founders of the ground breaking theatre company Complicité, reveals his creative inspirations and influences. For over four decades McBurney has created innovative and experimental works, from immersive staging to the reinvention of classic texts. His works include A Disappearing Number, The Encounter and Mnemonic, a landmark production which has been recently revived at The National Theatre. Simon McBurney tells John Wilson about his childhood in Cambridge where his father, an archaeologist, helped foster an early fascination with time and memory. For This Cultural Life he chooses the 1969 Ken Loach film Kes as a formative influence, offering an insight to a childhood very different to his own middle class upbringing. He recalls seeing the band The Clash whilst at Cambridge University, an experience that had a profound impact on his own creativity and political engagement through the arts. He also chooses the writer and critic John Berger as an inspirational figure, and recalls collaborating with Berger on the immersive Artangel project The Vertical Line in 1999. Simon McBurney also describes how the experience of meeting indigenous Amazonian people inspired his 2016 Complicité show The Encounter. Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive clips from: Kes, Ken Loach, 1969 The Clash Live at Rock Against Racism, Victoria Park, 1978 The Dead Class, Tadeusz Kantor, 1976 Friday Night...Saturday Morning: Cambridge Footlights, BBC1, Nov 1979 Ways of Seeing, Episode 1, BBC2, Jan 1972 The Vertical Line, Complicité, BBC Radio 4, 1999 The Encounter, Complicité, Barbican Theatre, May 2018 Face to Face, BBC2, Oct 1995 Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Christopher McQuarrie, 2015

One of the world's greatest novelists, Salman Rushdie has won many prestigious international literary awards and was knighted for services to literature in 2007. He won the Booker Prize in 1981 for Midnight's Children, a novel that was also twice voted as the best of all-time Booker winners. In 1989 Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini declared that Rushdie's fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, was blasphemous and pronounced a death sentence against its author. For over a decade he lived in hiding with close security, a period of his life that he wrote about in the 2012 memoir Joseph Anton. His most recent book Knife details the horrific stabbing he survived in 2022.Talking to John Wilson, Salman Rushdie recalls his childhood in Bombay, and the folk tales and religious fables he grew up with. He chooses Indian independence and partition in 1947 as one of the defining moments of his creative life, a period that formed the historical backdrop to Midnight's Children. He discusses how, having first moved to England as a schoolboy and then to New York after the fatwa, the subject of migration has recurred throughout much of his work, including The Satanic Verses. Rushdie also explains how "surrealism, fabulism and mythical storytelling” are such an influence on his work, with particular reference to his 1999 novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet which was inspired by the ancient Greek tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. As Rushdie says, "truth in art can be arrived at through many doors”.Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used:BBC News, 12 Aug 2022 Newsnight, BBC2, 12 Aug 2022 BBC Sound archive, India: Transfer of Power, 15 August 1947 Nehru: Man of Two Worlds, BBC1, 27 Feb 1962 Midnight's Children, Book at Bedtime, BBC Radio 4, 27 August 1997 Advert, Fresh Cream Cakes, 1979 BBC News, 14 Feb 1989 The World At One, BBC Radio 4, 14 Feb 1989 BBC News, 28 May 1989 Today, BBC Radio 4, 27 April 1990 Clip from Curb Your Enthusiasm, Season 9, episode 3

John Wilson's guest is the pioneering American artist, author and educator Judy Chicago. Having run the first ever feminist art course in California, she established herself as a powerful advocate of women artists in the early 1970s. She is best known for a ground-breaking installation piece called The Dinner Party, a monumental work which was made with the help of a team of ceramists and needle-workers over five years and first displayed in 1979. Now enjoying her sixth decade as an artist, Judy Chicago is regarded as a trailblazing figure in the art world.Judy recalls studying at the Art Institute of Chicago's children's classes at the age of five, and afterwards wandering around the galleries upstairs where she was particularly drawn to the Impressionists. It was here that she first decided to become an artist. As a young woman she moved to the west coast to pursue her dream. Although she found the art scene there "inhospitable" to women, she was inspired by a group of male artists including Ed Rucha, Larry Bell and Bill Al Bengton, associated with the LA-based Ferus gallery. Judy also cites discovering Christine de Pisan, the Italian-born French medieval poet at the court of King Charles VI of France, as a turning point in her own research and art practice. Like Judy herself, de Pisan had faced obstacles because of her gender and sought to challenge contemporary attitudes towards women by creating an allegorical City of Ladies. She is one of the women represented in Judy Chicago's landmark work The Dinner Party.Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used: Omnibus: Judy Chicago's Dinner Party, BBC1, 13 January 1981 Rebel Women: The Great Art Fight Back, BBC4, 10 July 2020

Oscar-winning director, screenwriter and novelist Neil Jordan made his name with the 1984 movie The Company Of Wolves, adapted from an Angela Carter short story. His 1986 film Mona Lisa earned BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for its star Bob Hoskins. Jordan scored an even bigger critical and commercial hit worldwide with The Crying Game, which had six Academy Award nominations including best screenplay which was won by Neil Jordan himself. His 20 feature films made over 40 years also include an adaptation of Ann Rice's novel Interview With the Vampire, Irish revolutionary drama Michael Collins and The End Of The Affair, adapted from the Graham Greene novel. Neil Jordan talks to John Wilson about his upbringing in a Dublin suburb, the son of a school teacher father who encouraged an early love of storytelling. After working as a labourer, and in a Dublin theatre for a while, he met filmmaker John Boorman (Point Blank, Deliverance, The Emerald Forest) who, in 1980, was shooting his Arthurian legend film Excalibur at film studios in Ireland. Boorman invited Neil Jordan to direct a documentary about the making of Excalibur, an experience which started his filmmaking career. Jordan also chooses the 1943 Jean Genet novel Notre Dame des Fleurs - Our Lady Of The Flowers - as a formative influence on his screenwriting. He recalls the struggles to make The Crying Game and how the film's producer Harvey Weinstein objected to the inclusion of a trans character, a supporting role for which Jaye Davidson was nominated as best actor at the 1992 Academy Awards.Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used: Clip from A Fistful of Dollars, Sergio Leone, 1964 Clip from Excalibur, John Boorman, 1981 Clip from The Crying Game, Neil Jordan, 1992 Neil Jordan accepts his Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, 1992 Clip from The Crying Game, Neil Jordan, 1992 Clip from Michael Collins, Neil Jordan, 1996

Zadie Smith grew up in north west London and studied English at Cambridge University. After a publisher's bidding war when she was just 21, her debut novel White Teeth became a huge critical and commercial hit on publication in 2000 and won several awards including the Orange Prize, now known as the Women's Prize for Fiction, and the Whitbread first novel award. Since then, with books including On Beauty, NW and Swing Time, Zadie Smith has established herself as one of the world's most successful and popular living novelists, renowned for her witty dialogue and explorations of cultural identity, class and sexuality. Her most recent book The Fraud is her first historical novel. Zadie Smith talks to John Wilson about her upbringing in Willesden, North West London, with her Jamaican born mother and white English father. She chooses C S Lewis' The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe as an early formative influence and remembers how its themes of danger, power and betrayal were intoxicating to her as a young reader. Zadie talks about the creative influence of her husband, the poet Nick Laird, and of the cultural impact of a trip she made to west Africa in 2007 which inspired much of her 2016 novel Swing Time. She also reflects on her role as an essayist who in recent years, has increasingly written about global political and social issues.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Renowned for the autobiographical candour of her lyrics, Lily Allen has sung about the pitfalls of fame, drugs, broken relationships and motherhood. She was nominated for a Grammy Award for her debut album Alright Still and after the release of It's Not Me, It's You in 2010 won a Brit Award and three Ivor Novello Awards, including Songwriter of the Year. In 2021 she embarked on a stage acting career starring in 2.22 A Ghost Story, for which she was nominated for an Olivier Award. More recently, with her childhood friend Miquita Oliver, she launched her BBC podcast series Miss Me.Talking to John Wilson, Lily recalls a sometimes sad and troubled childhood. Her father, the actor and comedian Keith Allen, had left the family home when she was four, and her film producer mother Alison Owen was often away working. She chooses as her first formative experiences a school concert in which she performed the song Baby Mine from the Disney movie Dumbo and captivated the audience. She recalls how the first started writing and recording her own songs, and built up a fanbase with the on-line platform MySpace. She chooses, as key musical influences the 1979 song Up The Junction by Squeeze, and the 2004 album A Grand Don't Come For Free by Mike Skinner, otherwise known as The Streets. Lily Allen also reflects on the pressures of juggling life in the spotlight with motherhood, and how theatre acting has offered her a new creative challenge.Producer: Edwina Pitman

The work of composer and conductor John Adams blends the rhythmic vitality of Minimalism with late-Romantic orchestral harmonies. He emerged alongside Philip Glass, Steve Reich and other musical minimalists in the early 1970s, and his reputation grew with symphonic work and operas that tackle recent history including Nixon In China, the Death Of Klinghoffer and Dr Atomic. He is the winner of five Grammy Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Music, and is one of America's greatest and most performed living composers. Born and raised in New England, Adams learned the clarinet from his father and played in marching bands and community orchestras during his formative years. He began composing at the age of ten and heard his first orchestral pieces performed while still a teenager. He tells John Wilson about the huge influence the composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein and his televised Young People's Concerts had on him. He also reveals how jazz band leader and composer Duke Ellington influenced how he writes for the orchestra, and how Charles Dickens inspired him to embrace accessibly in his compositions.Producer: Edwina PitmanExtract from Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concert, What Does Music Mean? CBS, 18 January 1958, © The Leonard Bernstein Office

Irish novelist Anne Enright is the author of seven novels, including The Gathering, winner of the Booker Prize in 2007. Her 2012 novel The Forgotten Waltz won the Andre Carnegie Medal for Fiction and her novel The Green Road won The Irish Novel of the Year in 2015, the same year that she was appointed as the inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction. Her latest novel The Wren, The Wren has been shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2024.Anne tells John Wilson how her childhood home in the suburbs of Dublin, and holidays spent at the Pollock Holes in Kilkee inform her writing. She recalls her book-devouring household and first reading Ulysses while on a cycling holiday at the age of 14. The play Top Girls by Caryl Churchill was also a creative influence, particularly in the way Churchill wrote dialogue for women who were at the time, so underrepresented on stage. Anne also cites the influence of the writer Angela Carter, both as a writer of contemporary fiction and as her tutor and mentor at the University of East Anglia. Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive and readings used:Extract from The Gathering, read by Anne Enright Extract from The Wren, The Wren, read by Charlotte Pyke Extract from Top Girls by Caryl Churchill, BBC, 1992

Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado is best known for his captivating black and white photographs. He has documented scenes of hardship and desperation in times of war and famine; he has explored global labour and migration; and he has captured the wonders of the natural world. Salgado has worked in more than 120 countries over the last 50 years, and is now regarded as one of the all time greats of photography. His images are in the collections of museums and galleries around the world, he won the prestigious Premium Imperiale arts prize in 2021 and was the 2024 recipient of the Sony World Photography Award for outstanding achievement.Raised on this a cattle farm in eastern Minas Gerais state, an early formative experience was leaving home for the city of Vitória in 1960. It was here, watching ships dock from all around the world, that he first felt the desire to travel. It's also where he met his wife Lélia who is his curator and editor. He began a promising career as an economist but switched to photography in the early 1970s, after he and Lélia bought their first camera on holiday. Joining the Magnum agency, the international cooperative of photographers, in 1979 allowed him to refine his craft with the help and advice of photography greats such as Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Salgado tells John Wilson about some of his most famous photo series, including those on the theme of manual labour which he called Workers; and Exodus, the stories of global migration. Covering the Rwandan genocide in 1994 as well as years of photographing refugees from wars, natural disasters and poverty finally took its toll on Salgado's health. He stopped photographing and returned to Brazil, where he and Lélia began reforesting his father's farm, now transformed into a National Park of lush vegetation called Instituto Terra. The success of this venture led to Salgado returning to photography, this time seeking out beauty and landscapes in series called Genesis, his love letter to the planet. Producer: Edwina Pitman

For over forty years, the sculptor Sir Antony Gormley has been using his own body as the basis for his artistic work, and is known for creating cast iron human figures that stand on high streets, rooftops and beaches, as well as in museums and galleries around the world. He won the Turner Prize in 1994 and the prestigious Premium Imperiale in 2013. Antony Gormley is best known for the Angel Of The North, a monumental winged figure on a hill in Gateshead which, overlooking the motorway and a mainline railway, is one of the most viewed pieces of modern art in the world.He talks to John Wilson about his Catholic childhood and the influence that his former art teacher, the sculptor John Bunting had on him while he was at boarding school. Being taken by his father to the British Museum and seeing the colossal human-headed winged bulls, which once guarded an entrance to the citadel of the Assyrian king Sargon II (721-705 BC) captured his creative imagination. Gormley also chooses the life-changing experience of learning Vipassana meditation in India under the teacher S N Goenka, as one that has deeply informed his work.Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive: The Shock of the New : The Future That Was, BBC 2, 1980 Nightwaves, BBC Radio 3, 1994 BBC News, 1998 Five Sculptors : Antony Gormley, BBC2, 1988