Private Passions

Revealing conversation and music from fascinating guests each Sunday on BBC Radio 3

We’ve been producing this popular weekly programme since 2012 – booking high-profile guests from Laura Mvula to Alan Bennett to share their private musical passions. Since we took over production we’ve taken the programme out on location, increased the diversity of guests and introduced a successful weekly podcast.

Presenter: Michael Berkeley | Producer: Jane Greenwood | Music researcher: Oliver Soden | Executive Producers: Elizabeth Burke and Jo Coombs

Produced for BBC Radio 3

"'Private Passions' is the slow burn relation of 'Desert Island Discs', with dreamy long playing tracks - you ease yourself into a warm bath of talk and music and luxuriate"

Irish News

When Alan Bennett recorded his Private Passions

  • Charlie Phillips, who wanted to be an opera singer, but ended up a globally exhibited photographer.
  • Dr John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, revealed the music which has sustained him through an extraordinary and challenging life, including Elgar's Cello Concerto.
  • Artist Sarah Lucas's music choices included Purcell's King Arthur; songs by Benjamin Britten and Ivor Gurney; and music by her partner Julian Simmons.
  • Writer Petina Gappah discussed her determination to translate George Orwell into her first language, Shona, and what 'Animal Farm' says to readers in Zimbabwe.
  • Juliet Nicholson says a childhood full of secrets was the perfect training for a historian.
  • Laura Mvula talked to Michael Berkeley about early experiences with stage fright and the move from classical music student to chart-topping singer.
  • Journalist Virginia Ironside's favourite music includes Schubert, Strauss, Paul McCartney, and the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, of which her son is a member.
  • Some of Bettany Hughes's private passions were discovered during her travels as a historian.