RNZ: Saturday Morning

Wu Man is a founding member of Yo-Yo Ma's Silkroad Ensemble, which aims to bring cultures together through music. She is a virtuoso in the pipa - also called the Chinese lute - which has been played in China for around 2000 years and she is credited with giving the instrument a new role in both traditional and contemporary music. Wu Man was the first person to receive a master's degree in pipa performance from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. She collaborates with the Kronos Quartet and the Shanghai Quartet, and has worked with orchestras around the world. She has recorded more than 40 albums, five of which have been nominated for Grammy Awards. She was named Musical America's 2013 Instrumentalist of the Year. Wu Man plays with the NZ String Quartet in a concert organised by Victoria University and the Confucius Institute, at St Mary of the Angels, Wellington on September 28.

When he was in his late 40s, anxiety and depression overwhelmed Wellingtonian Brent Williams and he walked away from his partner, four children and job. He tells the story of his journey back to the world in the graphic memoir Out of the Woods.

Parliament in Iceland has been dissolved and it may be looking at electing its sixth prime minister in nine years. The meltdown began after it was found that Benedikt Sveinsson, the father of Prime Minster Bjarni Benediktsson, wrote a letter seeking a pardon for an acquaintance who had been jailed for raping and sexually abusing his stepdaughter for 12 years - and claims that the prime minister knew about the letter but had tried to cover it up. Mr Benediktsson's shaky ruling coalition collapsed over the scandal, paving the way for a new election on October 28. Kim will unpick the chain of events with Ingólfur Sigfússon, a reporter for RUV, the Icelandic national broadcaster.

Associate professor David C. Paton is head of the discipline of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Adelaide. He has contributed to the understanding and management of Australia's natural environment for three decades and is highly regarded for his research activities at Kangaroo Island and the Coorong National Park of South Australia. This week, in the wake of statistics that show Australia's kangaroo population has reached 45 million - double that of the human population of the country - he courted controversy by saying the animals need to be culled and eaten in large numbers because of the threat to biodiversity their exploding numbers pose.

Sir Richard Faull is a neuroscientist and is highly regarded internationally for his research into the workings of the human brain. He is founder and director of the University of Auckland's Centre for Brain Research (CBR), director of the Neurological Foundation Human Brain Bank at the CBR, and instigated the annual Brain Day that invites the community to the campus to learn more about neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases. He was made a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year Honours list 2017 for services to brain research. Bernie Crosby is the founder, and now a director of Prolife Foods, one of NZ's largest privately owned and operated food businesses. In 2005 Crosby was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. He has joined forces with researchers at the CBR and devoted himself to helping fundraise a million dollars in research funding over five years, with one of his aims being the elimination of Parkinson's.

Kip Chapman is an actor, playwright and director who is having a very busy 2017. He directs That Bloody Woman, a rock opera about Kate Sheppard, and is also the co-creator, writer and director of Hudson and Halls Live! Both shows are touring the country currently and will also play a the Nelson and Tauranga Arts Festival (That Bloody Woman will also play the Napier Arts Festival). Chapman is also creative director of this year's World of Wearable Art. He's had acting roles in Top of the Lake and the Toa Fraser feature film 6 Days. Chapman believes some established New Zealand theatres do not cater enough to young audiences and has committed himself to rectifying what he sees as this imbalance.

Midge Sanford began a film production company with business partner Sarah Pillsbury in 1982 to form Sanford/Pillsbury Productions, a pioneering team of women producers in a male-dominated industry. The pair's first project, Desperately Seeking Susan, helped put them on the map and led to a string of films including River's Edge, Eight Men Out, And The Band Played On, and How to Make an American Quilt, among others. Sanford is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and is on the academy's foreign film committee. She served on the advisory boards of the Alliance of Women Directors as well as Project Involve, a film mentorship programme for minority filmmakers. She has been a panelist at film festivals around the world, including Sundance, Toronto, Vancouver, Rio de Janeiro, Australia and Puerto Rico. Sanford will speak about making independent films at this year's Big Screen Symposium at Auckland University's Business School September 30 - October 1.

Dr Daniel Dor is the author of The Instruction of Imagination: Language as a Social Communication Technology (2015) which has challenged established ideas about the evolution and utility of language, and he's written extensively on linguistics while touring the world to share his theories. Dor is also an activist who has frequently criticised the Israeli treatment of Palestinians. He is former chair of the Center for the Protection of Democracy in Israel, author of two books (one award-winning) on Israeli propaganda and, with his wife Lia Nirgad, set up an NGO to monitor the activities of the Knesset vis-a-vis Palestine. Dor is visiting New Zealand to give this year's Hood Lecture at the University of Auckland on September 18, entitled Speaking across the gap: Language as a communication technology.

Humans are physically insignificant both individually and as a civilisation, but if we are very rare in the universe – as science suggests – we are also extremely valuable, says particle physicist Brian Cox.

Robyn Archer is a singer, writer, artistic director and public advocate for the arts. She is currently strategic advisor, Gold Coast Arts and Culture, deputy chair of the Australia Council for the Arts, and chair of the National Institute of Dramatic Art's inaugural Master of Fine Arts (cultural leadership). She is an officer of the Order of Australia. Archer's burgeoning career was fast-tracked when her one-woman show - A Star is Torn - became a major hit, touring throughout Australia from 1979 to 1983, and playing for a year at Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End. In it, she explored the careers and tragic lives of 13 women performers including Judy Garland, Patsy Cline, and Janis Joplin. Archer's latest work (as director and writer) is called The Sound Of Falling Stars which plays at the Auckland Live International Cabaret Season from September 21-24. In it, she looks this time at the famous male singers who were also taken too soon - Elvis Presley, Kurt Cobain, Jeff Buckley, Sam Cooke and more.

Gordon Noble-Campbell is a private client services director for Forsyth Barr in Wellington. His mother was one of around 800 Poles, mainly children, who arrived in Wellington in 1944, having survived expulsion from Poland to Siberian war camps, then evacuation to Iran before reaching New Zealand at the invitation of then Prime Minister Peter Fraser. Noble-Campbell's mother lost four family members after the group escaped from the Siberian logging settlement of Jeglec in the middle of the 1941/42 winter. He will speak to Kim from Warsaw, Poland, where he's attending the 75th anniversary of the evacuation of Polish civilians from the Soviet Union to Iran in 1942, by General Wladyslaw Anders and the Polish Army. The commemoration includes a two-day conference followed by a day of remembrance in Warsaw on Sunday, September 17.

Kim Hill reads messages from listeners to the Saturday Morning programme.

Dylan Mulder is an industrial designer who was a finalist in the World of Wearable Art competition four times, winning awards in 2013, 2014 and 2016. In 2016, he won the Wearable Technology and Cirque du Soleil awards for his futuristic Digital Stealth God designs - garments inspired by ancient Egyptian dynasties which he envisaged as still reigning in a parallel universe. That win bagged Mulder a one-month internship to work at Cirque du Soleil's Canadian headquarters, which has led to ongoing work with the pioneering entertainment company, and Mulder hopes to return to its Montreal headquarters soon. He has also worked as a freelance designer in the movie industry, including at Weta Workshop. Mulder was born in Mosgiel and is a descendant of the master weaver Dame Rangimarie Hetet. World of Wearable Art 2017 opens in Wellington on September 21.

Colin Hogg has worked for several decades in newspapers, magazines and television, and has also published several books. In 2000, he won a national television scriptwriting award for his work on Crump, a feature-length documentary about writer Barry Crump. He conceived and wrote two series of the TVNZ 1 arts programme Mercury Lane, wrote and produced documentaries including A Flock of Students (DNZ) and History Man (a TVNZ Festival NZ documentary on writer Michael King). He conceived Ask Your Auntie, the hit five-nights-a-week advice show which played for three seasons on Maori Television. He has also written scripts for many TV documentaries and series, including nine seasons of popular TVNZ series The Zoo. Colin Hogg's latest book is The High Road, which sees him and faithful sidekick Bruce hit the high road in America on an exploration of a wild new world, where cannabis is free and easy. He'll be talking about the book at the Going West Books & Writers Festival, on September 10

Horticulturist Judy Horton is the face of gardening in Australia. She talks to Kim Hill about gardening challenges and fashions and her favourite garden in the world.