Desert Island Discs Revisited

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BBC Radio 4 Extra

Factual: Life Stories

Selected castaway gems from the BBC Desert Island Discs archive.

Desert Island Discs Revisited: BBC Proms 2022: Marin Alsop

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Marin Alsop

BBC Proms 2022

Desert Island Discs

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Desert Island Discs Revisited, BBC Proms 2022, Marin Alsop

From Aretha Franklin to Gustav Mahler, conductor Marin Alsop shares her castaway choices.

From Aretha Franklin to Gustav Mahler, conductor Marin Alsop shares her castaway choices with Kirsty Young. From September 2014.

From Aretha Franklin to Gustav Mahler.

Conductor Marin Alsop shares her castaway choices with Kirsty Young

Music Director of both The Baltimore Symphony and The Sao Paulo State Symphony Orchestra, she is a maestro with a mission: music, she believes, is a powerful vehicle for social change.

She had the good fortune to be brought up in "a household that exuded possibility" and was filled with music - both her parents played professionally. She took up the piano aged two, swapped to the violin at 6 and then aged 9, saw Leonard Bernstein at work and made the decision that conducting would be her career. Much later she would go on to be mentored by the man who inspired her.

It bores her when interviewers ask why there aren't more women conductors - nonetheless her capacity to maximise the few opportunities she was given as a young woman making her way in an exclusively mans' world gives one a flavour of her indomitability. Her day-to-day job after all is working out how to convince 100 experts to do what she wants.

She says, "maybe it's being an only child: you want to bring people together and create this big family feeling, I don't know what it is but I always gravitated towards organising."

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2014.

Desert Island Discs Revisited: BBC Proms 2022

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Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama. With recent favourites from BBC Radio 4.

A collection of castaways closely connected to this year's festival.

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