Countercurrent: Conversations With Professor Roger Kneebone

Rachel Vickery is a human behaviour and high performance consultant. Initially an international gymnast on the New Zealand National Team, she retired from athletics at the age of nineteen. She trained as a physiotherapist and gained extensive clinical experience before specialising in supporting people from a wide range of high pressure professions and fields - including medicine, sport, the military and law. Rachel’s approach integrates physical, mental and emotional dimensions. In this podcast we discuss our shared fascination in looking across conventional disciplinary boundaries. https://rachelvickery.com

Sophie Yates is a distinguished harpsichordist - recitalist, broadcaster, recording artist and teacher. We first recorded a Countercurrent conversation in 2017. In this podcast we explore Sophie’s ability to listen with forensic accuracy in her world of music - and compare this with the role of listening in clinical practice and other areas of performing. 

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 been working with indigenous musicians in Bolivia for over twenty years, uncovering and exploring a baroque  musical tradition dating back to the Jesuit missions in the 17th century.  https://www.rcm.ac.uk/hp/professors/details/?id=01414

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 explore the role of poetry and metaphor in Mark’s ministry and find surprising resonances between our areas of practice. 

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 and orchestras. He and pianist Martha Argerich will be performing at the Wigmore Hall in October 2025 in a concert to celebrate his 85th birthday.

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 repository.  https://www.londonlibrary.co.uk  

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 facets of a conductor’s role. https://www.tobypurser.co.uk

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 traces his journey from his early days working in a jeweller’s shop in Brighton through a series of unpredictable twists and turns. http://www.wvmstudio.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqH56YPO5zM

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://howardphipps.co.uk

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 life classes at the Royal Academy of Arts, which is where we first met. In this conversation we explore similarities and differences between our areas of work. https://www.adelewagstaff.co.uk

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 approach to music and discuss parallels between our professional worlds.

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 recorded this podcast at Steven’s exhibition Nothing is Real in London. https://www.stevenappleby.com

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 areas of professional practice. https://15nbs.com/portfolio/stephen-akinsanya/

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.arizona.edu/profile/allan-j-hamilton-md-facs

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 included developing the concept of Sequential Simulation. Since leaving Imperial to join the University of Greenwich she has established her reputation as a leading thinker in her field and is the President Elect of the Association for Simulated Practice in Healthcare (ASPiH). https://www.gre.ac.uk/people/rep/faculty-of-education-and-health/dr-sharon-weldon

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 churches. In this conversation Paul describes the processes of stone carving and how he brings together ancient and modern influences in his work.

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 discuss his work on the history of masks, prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic. https://www.mcgill.ca/ssom/staff/schlich