Artist:Salvatore Dell'Isola
Song:Overture
Album:South Pacific: Original Broadway Cast
Salvatore Dell'Isola was the musical director and conductor for Broadway shows written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. These kind of guys don't get much credit. When the overture is listed on an album cover, it is credited to Orchestra. I want to know who conducted the orchestra. AccuRadio does this too but that's a byproduct of the way things are done on cast albums. Dell'Isola was born Jan. 4, 1901 in Salerno, Italy. He moved to New York with his family in 1907. But he returned to Salerno to study violin at the conservatory there. By age 12 he was travelling in Italy with opera orchestras. When Dell'Isola returned to the US, he worked for the RKO theater chain in vaudeville and for the Metropolitan Opera. Rodgers and Hammerstein first hired Dell'Isola to conduct a mid-40s touring company of Oklahoma. His first Broadway show was Allegro in 1947 followed by South Pacific in 1949. He was nominated for a Best Conductor and Musical Director Tony for the 1955 show Pipe Dream. And then he won a Tony for the 1958 show Flower Drum Song. That was Dell'Isola's final Rodgers and Hammerstein show. After that Dell'Isola was music director for the Westbury Music Fair. He continued to conduct symphony orchestras in the New York area into the 80s. He died on Mar. 13, 1989 at age 88. Here's a video of the Overture from the 1949 musical South Pacific by Salvatore Dell'Isola.
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