Private Passions - Edmund de Waal

Michael Berkeley's guest today is the potter and writer Edmund de Waal, internationally renowned for his beautiful porcelain vessels which are to be seen in museums and galleries all over the world, from London to Los Angeles, Korea and Frankfurt. The son of a dean of Canterbury Cathedral, he was educated at the King's School, Canterbury, where he was taught pottery by Geoffrey Whiting, a disciple of Bernard Leach. After leaving Cambridge, where he read English at Trinity Hall, he set up a pottery on the Welsh border, making inexpensive domestic pottery in Leach's Anglo-Oriental style, but later on began to interpret the Oriental tradition in a different way. Most of his work now consists of cylindrical pots with pale celadon glazes, and he specializes in installations involving groups of pots, such as 'Signs and Wonders' at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, launched recently as part of their new Ceramic Galleries. He has recently exhibited at Leamington Spa, and at Kettle's Yard in Cambridge. An exhibition entitled 'From Zero' may currently be seen at the Alan Cristea Gallery in London. De Waal is also a writer. His books include 'Twentieth Century Ceramics'; a monograph on Bernard Leach, and a forthcoming memoir, 'The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance', which will be published in June 2010. Edmund de Waal has been passionate about music since childhood. Several of his choices - sacred music by Orlando Gibbons, J.S. Bach and Gesualdo - recall his formative years spent near a great cathedral. There's also music he works to, including Adams's 'Shaker Loops', Eno's 'This' and Moby's 'Porcelain', as well as Brendel playing a Mozart sonata and the Prologue and Pastoral from Britten's Serenade for tenor, horn and strings.