Charles Mackerras

Born in Schenectady, New York in 1925 to Australian parents who returned home when he was two, Alan Charles Maclaurin Mackerras grew up in Sydney and trained first as an oboist at the New South Wales State Conservatorium before joining the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. A 1947 scholarship took him to Prague to study conducting with Václav Talich, where he encountered the music of Leoš Janáček for the first time — an encounter that would shape the rest of his career. Returning to England in 1951, he made his début at Sadler’s Wells Opera, and within months had conducted the first British performance of Janáček’s *Káťa Kabanová*.

Over six decades, Mackerras became one of the most versatile conductors of his generation. He served as Musical Director of Sadler’s Wells / English National Opera (1970–77) and of Welsh National Opera (1987–92), Chief Conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (1976–79), and Principal Guest Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra (1997–2003). Alongside the Janáček repertoire he made his own, he was a pioneer of historically-informed performance — recording Handel’s *Music for the Royal Fireworks* as the composer would have heard it, and producing complete cycles of the Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms symphonies. He retained a lifelong soft spot for the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan, and in 1951 wrote and recorded *Pineapple Poll*, a ballet drawn from Sullivan’s themes.

His honours included a CBE in 1974, a knighthood in 1979, Companion of the Order of Australia in 1997, and Companion of Honour in 2003. He was the first recipient of the Queen’s Medal for Music, and his discography — including award-winning Janáček opera cycles with the Vienna Philharmonic and a *Gramophone*-recognised *Gloriana* with Britten — left a recorded legacy almost unrivalled in its breadth. He conducted *Così fan tutte* at Glyndebourne only weeks before his death in London in 2010, all but fulfilling his stated wish “to die on the podium.”