Leo Quayle

Leo Quayle (11 December 1918 - 19 May 2005) was a South African conductor described as the “South African maestro of music theatre.” Early life Quayle was born in Pretoria where he trained with his father, Leo Quayle snr., and Isadore Epstein. He conducted an orchestra for the first time at the age of fourteen, and conducted the Pretoria Juvenile Orchestra in 1934. He won the University of South Africa Scholarship for Piano in 1936. He took up this scholarship at the Royal College of Music in 1937, and returned after the end of the Second World War. He studied under Herbert Fryer and Constant Lambert at the Royal College of Music where he won the Stier Prize for conducting in 1939, and the Hopkinson Gold Medal in 1946. He spent the Second World War in South Africa as an organiser/director of the Union Defence Force Entertainment Unit. Career During the 1940s and 1950s he was firstly the assistant and later the principal conductor at the Sadler’s Wells Opera Company in London as well as one of the first music directors for the Welsh National Opera. He directed television operas, conducted ballet and film music at Denham Film Studios, and conducted various British orchestras includin