Private Passions

The American writer Rachel Eliza Griffiths creates poetry that resonates with music: she writes about her mother cleaning the house while ‘Pavarotti trembled across the terse sunlight of every room.’
As well as poetry, she’s written a novel, and her most recent book is a memoir called The Flower Bearers. It deals with loss, including the sudden death of her closest friend. She received the news on what should have been the happiest of days – her marriage to the writer Salman Rushdie. And less than a year later, she found herself beside his hospital bed after the knife attack which nearly claimed his life.
But this is no misery memoir – there is the joy of finding her voice as a young poet in New York in the 90s, the strength she gains from the writers who have paved the way, and the music that travels with her.
Eliza's music choices include music by Schumann, Bach, Puccini and Nina Simone.

Francis Spufford is an award-winning writer who loves to inhabit different worlds and vividly bring them to life: Golden Hill, which won the Costa First Novel Award, takes place in Manhattan in 1746, Light Perpetual begins in a Woolworths in South London in 1944 and Francis’s latest novel ‘Nonesuch’ is a historical fantasy set during the Blitz.
But it wasn’t until he was 52 that Francis felt confident enough to write works of fiction, before that his books covered a wide variety of topics from polar expeditions to the economic optimism of post-Stalin Russia to an exploration of the role religion has played in his life. He became an atheist in his teens but turned back to the church after a 20 year hiatus.
When not penning his own work, Francis encourages other budding authors as Professor of Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London.
His music choices include works by Byrd, Satie, Mozart and Ravel.

Sir Ian Blatchford has been the Director of the Science Museum in London for more than 15 years – the longest serving director in its history.
He also oversees the National Railway Museum in York, the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, Locomotion in County Durham, and the Science and Innovation Park in Wiltshire - all enjoyed by more than four million visitors last year.
He was the first in his family to go to university and his early career was in banking, but his passion was for culture. He combined the two as Finance Director at the V+A, before crossing the road to lead the Science Museum. It’s currently a very challenging time for anyone running a museum, with hard questions about funding, sponsorship and exhibition content.
His musical choices include Elgar, Monteverdi, Wagner and Sarah Vaughan.
Producer: Katy Hickman

The American writer George Saunders won the 2017 Booker Prize with his first novel, Lincoln in the Bardo. It’s a moving exploration of the grief of President Lincoln as he mourns his 11-year-old son Willie – and it’s voiced by the weird and wonderful spirits trapped in the cemetery.
George was 58 when the novel was published. In the decades before that, he won renown and awards as a master of the short story. He’s also won legions of followers for his close analysis of the form.
Most recently he’s published a second novel, Vigil, in which spirits return – this time to the deathbed of an oil tycoon.
His musical choices include John Adams, William Grant Still, Caroline Shaw and Dvorak.
Producer: Katy Hickman

The writer and film-maker Penny Woolcock can’t be pigeonholed: she’s worked as a director at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and made a film about warring drug gangs on the streets of Birmingham.
A passion for storytelling has driven her career, along with a rebellious streak, perhaps because she’s something of an outsider and never went to university or film school. She often uses non-professional actors in her work, including a staging of Bach’s St Matthew Passion with people who had experienced homelessness. And after completing her movie about rival gangs in Birmingham, she found herself helping to broker a peace deal between two of the actual gang leaders.
She has recently written a memoir, The Man Who Gave Me a Biscuit, about growing up in a British enclave in Argentina.
Her musical choices include Shostakovich, Britten, Bach and Sibelius.
Producer: Katy Hickman