John Tusa | |
|---|---|
 Tusa in 2010 | |
| Born | (1936-03-02)2 March 1936 (age 89) Zlín, Czechoslovakia (present day Czechia) |
| Occupations | Arts administrator Journalist |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
Sir John Tusa (born 2 March 1936) is a British arts administrator, and radio and television journalist. He is co-chairman of theEuropean Union Youth Orchestra from 2014. chairman, British Architecture Trust Board, RIBA, from 2014. From 1980 to 1986, he was a main presenter ofBBC2'sNewsnight. From 1986 to 1993, he was managing director of theBBC World Service. From 1995 to 2007, he was managing director of theCity of London'sBarbican Arts Centre.
Born inZlín,Czechoslovakia,[1] in March 1936, Tusa moved to England with his family in 1939. His father, also John Tusa (Jan Tůša), was managing director of BritishBata Shoes, established by the Czechoslovak shoe company, which, following its international pattern, also created a pioneering work-living community aroundits factory inEast Tilbury, Essex. Two days before the German occupation of Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939, Tusa senior flew out of Czechoslovakia on a Bata company plane, via Poland,Yugoslavia and France. He then became general manager of the Bata factory and its associated village in East Tilbury, living in the nearby village ofHorndon-on-the-Hill where his son grew up.[2]
Tusa junior was educated atSt Faith's School, Cambridge,Gresham's School,Holt, andTrinity College, Cambridge, where he gained a first class degree in History.[3]
In 1960, Tusa joined theBBC as a trainee. After presenting the BBC's24 Hours and laterNewsnight (from its inception in 1979), he became managing director of theBBC World Service from 1986 to 1993. Tusa was President ofWolfson College, Cambridge from January to October 1993. He was then a newsreader on BBC'sOne O'Clock News for two years during the mid-1990s. He anchored the BBC's coverage of theD-Day,VE Day andVJ Day 50th anniversary celebrations in June 1994, May 1995 and August 1995, as well as theHong Kong handover on 30 June 1997.
From 1995 until 2007, he was managing director of theBarbican Arts Centre in theCity of London. For several years, he was chairman of the board of theWigmore Hall in London and was appointed chairman of theUniversity of the Arts London in 2007. For many years, he sat on the governing Council ofImperial College London on which strength was then offered vice-chancellor positions atReading and thenYork University, but decided against accepting them because of his lack of financial expertise.[citation needed] In 1987, he had been rejected for the position of Director-General of the BBC for the same reason. He was announced as having accepted the position of chairman with theVictoria and Albert Museum on 18 June 2007, but stepped down from the post a month later, recognising a conflict of interest with his position at theUniversity of the Arts London. In 2013, it was announced that Tusa would be leaving his post at University of the Arts London from August that year, and that SirJohn Sorrell would be the new chairman. From January 2009 to 2014, Tusa was chair of theClore Leadership Programme. In February 2010 he became honorary chairman of theartsdesk.com. In 2014, he became co-chairman of theEuropean Union Youth Orchestra.
Since leaving his BBC World Service post in 1993, Tusa has been critical of some BBC policies. He deprecated the focus and management style of (former) director generalJohn Birt and has been vociferous about subsequent decisions to pare down World Service activities in Europe, including the Czech section.[4]
From 2000 until 2005, Tusa interviewed 55 major figures in the arts forBBC Radio 3. From October 2009, until the end of the year, Tusa presented a 91-part series onBBC Radio 4.Day By Day used original archive news material to track events on a daily basis from 1989, including the fall of theBerlin Wall.
John Tusa'sEngaged with the Arts: Writings from the Frontline was published in 2007.[5] It explores ways that the arts can be encouraged within a cultural and political climate in which funding is constantly under threat. He wrote two books jointly with his historian wife Ann Tusa:The Nuremberg Trial (1983) andThe Berlin Blockade (1988).[6] His writings on the arts includeArt Matters,On Creativity, andThe Janus Aspect: Artists in the C20. Tusa married Ann Hilary Dowson in 1960; she died in November 2021. The couple had two sons.[6]
Co-author – with Ann Tusa:
| Media offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Austen Kark 1985–1986 | Director of External Broadcasting,BBC 1986–1993 | Succeeded by Sam Younger 1993–1998 |
| Academic offices | ||
| Preceded by | President of Wolfson College, Cambridge January–October 1993 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chairman of the University of the Arts London 2007–2013 | Succeeded by SirJohn Sorrell |
.svg) |
| ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
