Countercurrent: conversations with Professor Roger Kneebone

Ashley Solomon is Head of Historical Performance and Professor at the Royal College of Music. He is a baroque flute and recorder player who has performed as a soloist all over the world. He co-founded the baroque ensemble Florilegium in 1991. Since then they have made over 35 recordings and performed all over the world, including almost a hundred appearances at London's   Wigmore Hall. Ashley has...

The Very Rev Dr Mark Oakley is Dean of Southwark. He has held many ecclesiastical roles, including Rector of St Paul's Covent Garden, then Chancellor at St Paul's Cathedral. He is deeply interested in poetry, is a prolific writer and has a PhD in English literature. A turning point for Mark as a young minister in his twenties was his work with young men dying from HIV/AIDS. In this conversation we...

Stephen Kovacevich is one of the   most celebrated concert pianists of his generation. Since his Wigmore Hall debut in 1961 he has been known for his interpretations of Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart and Schubert. Stephen and I look back over his career and discuss his experiences as a soloist, chamber musician, recording artist and conductor, collaborating with many of the world's leading performers a...

Michael Booth is Chief Library Assistant at the London Library, where he has worked for forty years. One of his remarkable skills is an ability to track down books that have gone missing amongst the Library's collection of over a million volumes. We discuss the combination of observation, experience and detective work that enable him to find even the most elusive items in the Library's enormous re...

Toby Purser is Head of Conducting at the Royal College of Music in London. His musical interests encompass symphonic, operative and contemporary repertoires alongside film music and intercultural collaborations. He founded the Orion Orchestra in 2005 and is its artistic director. Toby has been guest conductor with many leading orchestras across the world. In this conversation we explore the many f...

Wayne Meeten is a distinguished craftsman whose work builds on ancient Japanese metalworking techniques and is profoundly influenced by Tai Chi. Wayne has studied in Japan, working with leading experts in the field. His works are created from a flat sheet of metal using only a hammer. He has won numerous awards for his work, which is in many private and public collections. In this podcast he trace...

Dr Janis Wong is Data and Technology Law Policy Advisor at The Law Society of England and Wales. She holds a PhD in computer science and is especially interested in the intersection between legal practice, technology, computing and artificial intelligence in today's rapidly changing environment.  

Howard Phipps is an artist and print maker, well known for his wood engravings which often focusing on the natural world, with haunting images of landscapes and trees and a vivid sense of place. He exhibits widely, his work features in the collections of many museums and galleries and he has won numerous prizes. He has been a member of the Society of Wood Engravers since 1985.     https://howardph...

The portrait artist Adele Wagstaff trained at Newcastle University and the Slade School of Fine Art. She has been shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize and the BP Portrait Award and her work has been exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery. Alongside her work in the UK she spends time in Egypt, working on portraits of people along the Nile. Adele teaches a wide range of students, including...

Helen Leek is a pianist who has won many prizes, including the International Young Concert Artists Competition and the Brant International Piano Competition. She performs as a soloist and chamber musician and teaches piano at Royal Holloway, University of London. She also gives masterclasses and adjudicates at competitions within the Royal   College of Music. In this conversation explore her appro...

Dame Eleanor Sharpston KC served as an Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the European Union from 2006 to 2020, before being removed following Brexit. Eleanor has held academic roles at the University of Cambridge, has numerous honorary doctorates and is a Bencher at the Middle Temple. In this conversation we discuss her remarkable career and explore parallels between our different paths.

Steven Appleby is an artist, illustrator and cartoonist who has created cartoon strips for The Guardian, The New Musical Express and many other publications. She has written and drawn many books (including the graphic novel Dragman), designed record covers, and has collaborated on a wide range of projects. She's a transgender person who describes herself as being relaxed about pronouns. We recorde...

Graham Scott is one of only twenty Premier League football referees. In this podcast we explore the challenges, pressures and satisfactions of being a top level referee and discuss the nature of the role. We also explore Graham's parallel career in journalism, from being a report to becoming Editor of the Nursing Standard.

Stephen Akinsanya is a barrister who focuses on defence work in many areas of criminal law. He has a particular interest in defending young people accused of involvement in knife-related crime. He is also committed to advocacy training and to supporting less experienced colleagues in his profession as they develop their careers. In this conversation we discuss our experiences in very different are...

Professor Allan Hamilton is a neurosurgeon, radiation oncologist, author, academic, horse whisperer, television scriptwriter and pioneer in artificial intelligence (AI). He holds four professorships at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. In this Countercurrent Revisited conversation we explore the excitements and dangers of AI in the clinical world and beyond. https://neurosurgery.arizo...

Sharon Weldon is Professor of Healthcare Simulation and Workforce Development at the University of Greenwich. After overcoming serious illness as a teenager and travelling all over the world, Sharon trained as a nurse. After completing a Masters at the London School of Hygiene and Tropic Health she joined Imperial College London. Her pioneering work as a doctoral student in my own research group i...

Paul Jakeman is a sculptor and stone carver, whose work ranges from creating new designs to restoring historic statues. He is also Stone Carving Tutor at the City & Guilds of London Art School. Paul's large scale work includes the Atlas Fountain at Kenilworth Castle and carving - and installing - the massive unicorn on the steeple of St George's Bloomsbury, one of London's iconic Hawksmoor churche...

Thomas Schlich is the James McGill Professor in the History of Medicine and Charie of the Department of Social Studies of Medicine at McGill University in Montreal. This Countercurrent Revisited conversation picks up the story six years after our first podcast. We discuss Thomas's longstanding fascination with surgery in the long nineteenth century and his book exploring these ideas. We also discu...

Annmarie Adams is Stevenson Professor in the History and Philosophy of Science, including Medicine, at McGill University in Montreal. An architect and architectural historian by background, Annmarie is jointly appointed in her university's School of Architecture and Department of Social Studies of Medicine. We explore how these perspectives intersect and share our experiences of hospital buildings...

Nina Baker was one of my first Countercurrent guests. In 2014 she described her varied career, from being the first female deck officer in the British Merchant Navy to her PhD in concrete science and her work in university administration. In this Countercurrent Revisited podcast we explore her longstanding fascination with the history of women in engineering.

After a five year apprenticeship as a wood and stone carver Bradford's (a leading London workshop) in the 1950s, Tony worked at the firm for fifteen years as a journeyman. He then moved to St Paul's Cathedral as Master Carver. There he was responsible for the cathedral's extensive conservation and restoration programme and also created new work. In this conversation we explore Tony's lifelong fasc...

Professor Misha Perouansky is a consultant anaesthetist and experimental neuroscientist in Madison WI, USA. He first took part in  Countercurrent 2017. In 2023 he suffered a catastrophic water-skiing accident, leading to a high above-knee amputation of one lower limb and a number of other injuries. In this Countercurrent Revisited conversation we explore Misha's experience of serious trauma and it...

Dr Emma Barker is an art historian and academic who teaches and researches at the Open University. She specialises in eighteenth-century French art and she is currently exploring ideas around art and blindness. https://www.open.ac.uk/people/eb38

Anne Desmet RA is a distinguished wood engraver, print maker and Royal Academician. Fascinated by the idea of metamorphosis, her imaginative works often draw on architectural themes. We discuss how her work has evolved over several decades, and how she brings together a wide range of styles and techniques. https://annedesmet.com

The immunologist Andrew George is Professor Emeritus at Imperial College London. In addition to his immunological research, Andrew plays a leading role in developing policy around ethical conduct and regulation of research. He has held many senior positions in universities and the health service and is also a career coach. https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/a.george