Raymond Leppard CBE

Raymond Leppard was born in London in 1927 and studied music, particularly baroque music, at Trinity College Cambridge. He became not only  a harpsichordist but also a viola player, a conductor, composer and editor. In the 1950s he was a répétiteur at Glyndebourne.   In the 1960s he played a prime role in the rebirth of interest in baroque music.

During this period he lived at 16 Hamilton Terrace and it was there that a fire destroyed a number of his manuscripts, including his restoration of Monteverdi’s 17th century opera Il Ritorno  d’Ulisse  which he was to conduct  at Glyndebourne the following year starring Janet Baker.  He was awarded the CBE in 1983.

Some time afterwards he moved to the United States, to Indianapolis where in 1987 he became  music director of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.  He became a US citizen in 2003.

He died in 2019 in Indianapolis where he lived with his husband Jack Bloom, an American doctor, who survives him.