Sir Charles Mackerras receives award for promoting Czech culture

The Czech minister of culture, Vaclav Riedlbauch, has presented the Australian classical music conductor Sir Charles Mackerras with an award for promoting the good name of the Czech Republic in the cultural sphere. The minister said he was giving Sir Charles the Artis Bohemiae Amicis prize in gratitude for all he had done for Czech music over the decades. Since studying in Prague in the late 1940s, the conductor has championed the music of Leoš Janáček; he has described his work with the Czech composer as his single most important legacy to music.