The only non-Czech on the board of Prague Spring
mainWe have sad news of the death of Graham Melville-Mason, a British authority on Czech music and one of its great ambassadors in the English-speaking world. He was 85.
Graham taught himself Czech in the 1970s by talking to a neighbour from the BBC Czech Service while they walked their dogs. He was head of the Dvorak Society,taught at Edinburgh University and Prague, and served for 20 years as music advisor to the Edinburgh Festival.
Here was a man who was passionate about music – especially anything Czech. He helped to get the RLPO to Prague in October 1988 for the first time when he (and many others!) pulled together their contacts to raise interest and money to make it happen for Libor Pesek to take his orchestra “home” wth him! Graham gave many pre-concert talks and will be a great loss to Anglo-Czech relations.
Ah, those were great days for the RLPO . I do hope that Libor is still hale and hearty
Remembered with affection and admiration – our annual negotiations of artists’ BBC fees were always accompanied by a wonderfully festive lunch at my favourite restaurant in Regents Park Road — which helped to raise the fees by a few pence. Graham’s passion for Czech music was infectious.