Christopher CookCultural HistorianProfileProfileMy career is more a sequence of zig zags than a straight line, but there is possibly one continuous thread in a professional life that began with making documentaries for BBC TV and Channel 4, has included teaching within the arts school system in London and for a number of US universities ‘study abroad’ programmes, which has found me writing and presenting cultural programs for BBC Radios 2, 3 and 4 and working as a curator and facilitator for a large number of UK arts organisations including English National Opera, the Royal Opera House, Glyndebourne, the LPO. It’s a nagging curiosity about cultural change and how it is brought about. Work I am currently working on Dryden and the idea of Patronage after the Restoration and an essay on the links between Claude Debussy and Edgar Allen Poe. Performances I am facilitating this season’s Pre-Performance Talks at English National Opera and study days on Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov and Puccini’s Il trittico for the Royal Opera. Ambition I yearn to be taught to make perfect fresh pasta and a perfect omelette.Research