Vilém Tauský

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Vilém Tauský CBE (July 20, 1910 - March 16, 2004) was a Czech conductor and composer. He was born in Přerov, Moravia.

He studied with Leoš Janáček and later became a repetiteur at the Brno Opera. At age 19, he conducted Giacomo Puccini's Turandot in Brno on short notice in place of an ill conductor. Tauský was of Jewish ancestry, and the rise of the Nazis forced him to move to France. He eventually made his way to the United Kingdom. He served musical functions in the Czechoslovak Army in exile, as a military band conductor in France and a band and choir leader in the UK.^[1]

From 1945 to 1949, Tauský was musical director of the Carl Rosa Opera Company. On 26 December 1953 Tauský became possibly the only conductor to conduct two operas on the same day, with a performance of Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel in the afternoon at Sadler's Wells and Giuseppe Verdi's Il Trovatore at Covent Garden in the evening. He was conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra from 1956 to 1967. He regularly appeared with this orchestra on the BBC Light Programme's long-running weekly show Friday Night is Music Night. Between 1966 and 1992 he was the director of opera and head of the conducting course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

In 1979, he published a volume of his memoirs under the title Vilem Tausky Tells his Story (ISBN 0852494785). In 1981, he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

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