The Australian-born musician was a prolific performer, recording artist and professor at the University of Alberta
Australian-born cellist Tanya Prochazka died on 12 May following a nine-year battle with ovarian cancer. Born in 1952, she began studying the cello at the age of seven in Melbourne, and in 1969 won the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s National Concerto Competition (now Young Performers Awards). She continued her studies at the Paris Conservatoire with cellist André Navarra, graduating in 1973, and later studied with Jacqueline du Pré and Janos Starker.
Prochazka performed and recorded with various ensembles in Vienna before settling in London in 1978, where she became a member of the Sirius Ensemble, Lontano and Florestan Trio. She was principal cellist of the Scottish Baroque Ensemble, the London Mozart Players and the English Sinfonia, and played in the Philharmonia Orchestra and for the Royal Shakespeare Company. She also taught at the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music.
In 1986 she moved to Edmonton, Alberta in Canada, and 1998 was appointed professor of cello and chamber music, and conductor of the University Symphony and the Academy Strings Orchestras at the University of Alberta. In 2009 she was inducted into the Edmonton Cultural Hall of Fame.
The sister of violinist Elizabeth Wallfisch, she is survived by her husband Arthur and three children Sam, Andy and Helenka.
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