Lin-Manuel Miranda, composer & lyricist

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 6 October 2019

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Lin-Manuel Miranda is best known as the composer, lyricist and original star of the multi-award-winning Broadway musical, Hamilton. It won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Drama, 11 Tony Awards and Grammy for Best Musical Theatre Album. The London production won seven Olivier Awards in 2018. Lin-Manuel was brought up in New York by his Puerto Rican parents, and his creativity and sensitivity to music began when he was a child: he performed in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance as a teenager and created films using his father’s camcorder. He attended the elite Hunter school for gifted children and spent his summer holidays in Puerto Rico with his extended family. His first musical, In the Heights, opened on Broadway in 2008, directed by his long-time collaborator, Thomas Kail. It received four Tony Awards including Best Score as well as a Grammy Award for its Original Broadway Cast Album. Among his TV and film acting credits are Fosse/Verdon, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Mary Poppins Returns, and he is currently filming the second series of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials for the BBC. He recently collaborated with J.J. Abrams on the song Dobra Doompa, for Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens and he contributed music, lyrics and vocals to several songs in the Disney animated feature film Moana. Lin-Manuel supported the relief efforts in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria in September 2017, performing Hamilton there and raising funds for arts and culture on the island. He co-founded the hip-hop improv group Freestyle Love Supreme in 2003 and they have just begun a debut run on Broadway. He lives in New York City with his wife, sons and dog. DISC ONE: Liza Minelli - Cabaret DISC TWO: The Decemberists - The Crane Wife Part 2 DISC THREE: Rubén Blades and Seis del Solar - El Padre Antonio y el Monaguillo Andrés DISC FOUR: The Pharcyde - Passin’ Me By DISC FIVE: Ali Dineen - What You Know DISC SIX: Regina Spektor - On the Radio DISC SEVEN: Gilberto Santa Rosa - Déjate Querer DISC EIGHT: Outkast - Rosa Parks BOOK CHOICE: Moby-Dick by Herman Melville LUXURY ITEM: Coffee CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: What You Know by Ali Dineen Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Cathy Drysdale

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts
0:04.9	Hello, I'm Lauren LeVern and this is the Desert Island Disks Podcast.
0:08.8	Every week I ask my guests to choose the 8 tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take
0:13.3	with them if they were cast away to a desert island.
0:16.6	This is an extended version of the original Radio 4 broadcast and for right reasons the
0:21.7	music is shorter than the original broadcast.
0:24.6	I hope you enjoy listening.
0:30.0	Music
0:46.0	How does a musical theatre loving hip-hop nerd from Manhattan start a theatrical phenomenon
0:51.1	and reshape American attitudes towards the birth of their nation by telling the story
0:55.7	of the country's first bureaucrat?
0:58.2	A cast away this week is Lin Manuel Miranda.
1:00.9	His show Hamilton also starts with a question about the apparently unlikely success of its
1:05.9	titular hero, one of America's founding fathers Alexander Hamilton.
1:10.4	To call it a smash is an understatement.
1:13.0	It has sold over a billion dollars worth of tickets, one eleven tonies, a Grammy and a
1:17.7	Pulitzer Prize and been described by former first lady Michelle Obama as the best piece
1:22.7	of art in any form that I have ever seen in my life.
1:26.5	Without content with writing and starring in his musicals he's also a star of the big
1:30.9	screen, recently playing Jack the Lamplighter in Mary Poppins Returns and this November he'll
1:35.9	be on our small screens in the TV adaptation of Philip Pullman's his dark materials.
1:41.0	Oh, and he also wraps too, more of that later.
	...

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