Desert Island Discs - Alan Hacker

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The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is a musician who started his professional career as a clarinettist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

However, when he was 26, Alan Hacker was permanently disabled by a thrombosis on his spinal column. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about how, since then, although confined to a wheelchair, he has been determined to prove his disability is not a handicap but just a nuisance. He'll be describing how he has carved out a niche for himself as a conductor, teacher and pioneer in the study of early music and is now a leading guest conductor of the Stuttgart Opera.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: London Symphony by Franz Joseph Haydn
Book: Middlemarch by George Eliot
Luxury: Hovercraft wheelchair with capuccino machine

Published on Sunday, 17th April 1994.

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