Lina Lalandi

Lalandi-Emery was born in Athens on 13 July 1920, a date she tried to keep secret. Her father Nikolas Kaloyeropoulos was the director of the Byzantine Museum in Athens.^[1] She was trained at the Athens Conservatoire.

She first came to notice when she was recognised for guiding allied troops through Athens during the Second World War.^[2]

In 1946 Lina married Cyprian Chando Richard Waller-Bridge (the paternal grandfather of actress and writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge) in Athens. Cyprian died in 1960. In 1962 Lina changed her name to Lina Madeleine Lalandi-Emery, as at that time she was in a relationship with a banker named Ralph Emery who was already married. Emery's wife refused to grant him a divorce, but Lina enjoyed the benefits of her new partner's wealth. It is estimated that he paid two million pounds, over the years, to subsidise the English Bach Festival,^[2] which began in 1963 with Lalandi and Jack Westrup as its joint artistic directors. The festival was originally based in Oxford but in time it moved to London.^[3] It had Bach as a theme; Lalandi wrote in 1963 that the festival would also include "20th-century composers whose way of thinking is nearer to [Bach's] than to that of the Romantic age."^[4] In 1965 she is credited appearing in "The Coach Travellers", a BTF film promoting coach travel, playing a dual manual harpsichord at the Sheldonian Concert Hall.^{[citation needed]}

In 1971 Jack Westrup was no longer a joint artistic director and Lalandi held the post on her own.^[3]

In 1975 she was included in the 1975 New Year Honours. She was given an Order of the British Empire for her work with the English Bach Festival.^[5]

In 1979 she received the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. She also had two awards from the Greek government.^[2]