Private Passions

Margaret Busby, publisher and editor

Margaret Busby is a publisher and editor who's helped change our literary landscape. She's been lauded by the writer Zadie Smith as the cheerleader, instigator, organiser, defender and celebrator of black arts, something she's done for nearly 60 years. She started young - she was just 23 years old when she co-founded the publishers Allison and Busby with Clive Allison in 1967. Free from the usual industry rules and with little money or experience, they began with five shilling poetry paperbacks and went on to champion new work as well as established writers from all backgrounds. Margaret's drive to showcase often overlooked or neglected talent led to two groundbreaking anthologies of women writers, Daughters of Africa and New Daughters of Africa. Margaret's music includes Bach and Chevalier de Saint-Georges, along with jazz greats Duke Ellington and Miles Davis. Radio 3 is celebrating the centenary of Miles Davis' birth in the coming week across numerous programmes including Composer of the Week, Round Midnight and The Essay.

Michael Wood, historian

The historian Michael Wood has shared his enthusiasms and expertise with television viewers and readers around the world for almost five decades. He’s brought us complex individuals such as Alexander the Great, pivotal conflicts such as the Trojan War, and national histories, including the Story of India, the Story of China and a people’s history of Britain. And here on Radio 3, he’s one of the distinguished historians joining Gillian Moore for Key Changes, a year-long series charting one thousand years of musical history, on air on Saturdays and on BBC Sounds. Michael's musical choices include Monteverdi, Bach, Messiaen and Chopin.

James Aldred, cameraman and writer

James Aldred is an Emmy award-winning documentary wildlife cameraman and filmmaker who has collaborated with David Attenborough on projects such Planet Earth, The Life of Mammals and Our Planet. He often finds himself suspended from ropes or on platforms high up in the rainforest canopy, capturing shots of rarely-seen animals and birds, including orangutans, gibbons and eagles. He recalled some of his treetop adventures - and the many dangers he’s faced - in his first book, The Man Who Climbs Trees. His second, Goshawk Summer, detailed his experience of filming a family of goshawks in the New Forest during lockdown. It went on to win the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing. His most recent book, A Wagon in the Woods, returns to the New Forest and is about his painstaking restoration of an old horse-drawn wagon he once played in as a child. James picks music by Borodin, Wagner, Mahler, Bach and John Barry.

Professor Dame Ijeoma Uchegbu, chemist

Professor Dame Ijeoma Uchegbu has dedicated her career to studying nanoparticles, finding ways to carry medicines to parts of the body that are notoriously hard to reach, such as the back of the eye and the brain, while causing fewer side-effects. She’s Professor of Pharmaceutical Nanoscience at University College London, President of Wolfson College Cambridge and was appointed a DBE in the King’s New Years Honours List last year. She’s also written a book called Chain Reaction: the Wondrous Chemistry of Everyday Life, in which she blends explanations of the science that surrounds us with moments of personal memoir. Ijeoma's music list includes Mozart, Vivaldi, Bach and Johann Strauss. Presenter Michael Berkeley Producer Clare Walker

Dietmar Mueller-Elmau, entrepreneur

Dietmar Mueller-Elmau is the owner of Schloss Elmau, a resort hotel in the Bavarian Alps, 60 miles from Munich. It was set up in 1916 by his grandfather, the philosopher and writer Johannes Müller. He wanted people to take “a holiday from the ego” and to enjoy classical concerts. Over the decades, it hosted performances by the likes of Benjamin Britten, Yehudi Menuhin and Alfred Brendel. Dietmar continues that tradition, with musicians such as Yuja Wang and the Kanneh-Masons, along with jazz concerts, events with writers and philosophers, and the G7 leaders conference – twice. Dietmar's music choices include Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Liszt and Chopin.